Paal Dabba

Paal Dabba aka Anish started as a dancer before he realized it was way too tough to make it as a professional dancer. The adjacent space of writing, performing and releasing music had its allure, though – artists were building audiences with independently released songs and the Tamil film music industry too always remained ready to pick up rising talent.  

That’s exactly the space within which Paal Dabba thrived, turning rapper for songs like “3SHA” in 2022 and then “Ai,” followed by the trippy “170CM,” released via Think Music. With millions of views for a Technicolor mash like that, Paal Dabba went on to release “Sab” and has since worked in films including Dhruva Natchathiram with composer Harris Jayaraj (“His Name is John”) and Aavesham with Kerala State Film Award-winner composer Sushin Shyam (“Galatta”). Fresh from his Australia shows and ahead of many more releases, Paal Dabba discusses influences and why he’s not just a hip-hop artist. 

Rolling Stone India: You just got back from shows in Australia for the first time, right? How was that? 

Paal Dabba: I had a very good show there, bro. I did one show in Sydney and one in Melbourne. Crowd was crazy, bro. Really had a fun time. 

I performed like two unreleased tracks. I was checking like people are getting the vibe or not. And they  enjoyed it, bro. The two songs on the way for my next release.  

Was this your first international show? What was it like going abroad and what did you expect? 

It was my second. The first, I did it in Dubai.  

I think about the crowd and how they’re going to respond. When I went to Dubai, I had a very bad experience there. The crowd wasn’t at all involved. They went to the back. That was very bad. Melbourne had a great crowd, though. The best thing is getting an opportunity to spread Tamil culture and music all over the world. I’m so happy about that.  

It’s a very different space, Tamil music compared to the rest of India – you can work in films, you can work with Think Music and you can release your own music also. Is it a good space to be in?  

Yeah. I’m not a big fan of doing music in films right now. My happiness is when I release my own songs. I love doing independent music more than films, but I’m doing film music so that I can spread my indie scene music to everybody – that’s the only reason. I love making indie music more than film songs.  

When you get so many offers from labels or to do film music, what do you have to watch out for, if anything when deciding about those projects? 

In the past, when I asked some people who did music with labels, they said many [bad] things. But seriously, there is no issue in that, bro. They are giving a lot of time for me. For ‘170CM,’ I took four months to make it and I didn’t get any pressure from [label] Think Music. They gave me a lot of time for my music. It depends on who you work with also. If they like your idea, they’re ready to give you time, so there’s no pressure.  

Dance is where it all started for you – what was it like making it as a professional dancer in India? 

It’s very difficult. South side, in Chennai, to make a career in dance, it was very difficult for me. There’s more competition. But within rap, people are coming out now but when I came up, there were fewer people who were claiming their space. So I thought I’ll put the dance aspect in the rap scene and I can do both.  

What did you have to figure out as you dove into music and had your first release in 2022? 

If you go and see the first video, I made – I released the song ‘3SHA,’ I don’t have any plans. I wanted to release the song, I shot it on my phone, I edited it on my phone. There was no plan. I got a lot of appreciation for it. After that, I decided not to make any plans. I’m going to go with the flow. Because if I made a plan, then something else ends up happening, so I figured I don’t want to plan anything.  

Lyrically, you’re very Gen-Z in terms of mixing Tamil and English words and pop culture. What would you count as influences on your music? 

Afrobeats, bro. If you see my costumes, if you see my hairstyle, if you hear my songs, [you’ll know] I’m more into Afrobeats. It helped me a lot. If I listen to their songs, I can see how much they play with vocals and the arrangements are crazy.  

How did you get introduced to it?  

I’m a dancer, so I used to listen to every genre out there. Every Saturday or Sunday or whenever my friends and I used to hang out, we’d share a lot of music, especially new music we would have discovered. That’s how different types of music came to me and that’s when I discovered Afrobeats and it got stuck in my head [laughs]. I wrote ‘170CM’ around the same time that I was discovering this music.  

Tell me about “170 CM” and “Sab” – it feels like a universe you’ve created. What does it take to dream that up and bring it to life? 

Two things – I love directing videos. I put out a lot of dance choreography videos and love directing those as well. The second thing I’m doing, I’m entering into direction and editing, recently I started producing also, with ‘SAB.’  

When I started making rap, nobody came and helped me out as such. I asked for help from everyone but nobody came forward, so then I decided to learn everything on my own – how to direct, how to edit, I’m learning to produce music now. 

If you see the videos I’ve put out so far, you can see the colorful tone. I love colors and in my costume, you can see that Afro influence. I always keep a story in mind when I create a music video. In ‘Ai’ and ‘170CM’ you can see a story in those. I sit and draw up a story and build everything from it.  

Any dream collaborations on your list?  

It would be with Afrobeats artists like Rema, Omah Lay, Adekunle Gold and Ayra Starr.  

What’s something that excites you about the future of music and one thing that worries you about it?  

That’s a hard question. I think what excites me is that I get inspiration from so many things outside of music and if I’m making music, I often get inspired by some other music. In terms of what worries me – in the South, there are a lot of independent, extremely talented artists but they are not getting exposure.  

Only if we come up and have a name, then we get picked up. But if they’re good, they’re not getting an opportunity just for being good.  

What’s coming up in 2024?  

My next release is coming up. It’s a song based on funk music and there’s a music video. I love to explore different genres, so I made funk music. That song is called ‘OCD.’ After that, there’s a song with OfRO – it’s a total commercial, folk-type of song. There’s also an R&B song coming up, with a producer named Shiva Pal.  

So you wouldn’t want to be known as just a rapper or hip-hop artist?  

I don’t want to be in a label like he’s a rapper. I don’t put me into that position. I want to explore into every music style.