Gravity’s New Album ‘Moonbounce’ Shows a Vulnerable Side to the Rapper

At the time that he was working on his aggro 2023 album Supervillain, Mumbai rapper Gravity and his producer Outfly were also working on a wholly different project that’s gone on to become his new album Moonbounce, which showcases the hip-hop artist’s penchant for writing heartbreak songs. Gravity says, “It’s crazy if you listen to both of them because they are poles apart.”

With the release of the single “Laapata” featuring singer-songwriter Maanuni in January before the complete eight-track album came out last month, Gravity and Outfly made their intentions clear – they were ready to push boundaries. By his own admission, Gravity says he’s known for incisive, no-nonsense hardcore rap and grunge-informed vocals. “But I wanted Gravity to be more grounded, more vulnerable, and I’ve been vulnerable in the past but not for an entire project,” he says.

It’s right from the album opener “Mehfooz” that we hear Gravity taking on a more singing voice, turning on the charm over bright synths. His distinctly deep-voiced rap is still present, but the choruses are markedly more euphoric. With pop star Arjun Kanungo on board, there’s a house music-informed swagger to “Kyu.”

The latest video from Moonbounce is “Raaton Mein,” which pairs Gravity with another boundary-blurring pop/hip-hop artist, Tsumyoki. Together, the Hindi and English song is a breezy, radio-friendly blend of styles. A familiar buoyancy flows through the beats on “Paheli,” but the funk element is juxtaposed with what is likely Gravity’s quick rap on the album. The lo-fi “Nishaniyan” gets introspective, while singer Raje lends her vocals to the club-ready, hook-heavy bop “Ulfat.” Moonbounce closes with a more hard-hitting rap track “Ankahi,” in which Gravity pretty much pours his heart out.

Gravity says he and Outfly began experimenting with everything from house to pop to drum and bass for Moonbounce initially. “Although we didn’t go with all of the ideas that we had, we picked some and we expanded on them,” he says. Their second project together after Supervillain, the rapper says he wouldn’t have been comfortable doing this with anyone other than Outfly. “To do a project like this, it takes me to such extremes when it comes to taking me out of my comfort zones,” the rapper says.

The objective with Moonbounce wasn’t to move into a more commercial, accessible sound necessarily. Gravity says the goal was to challenge himself and find out where his boundaries lay. “And to ask, ‘Does Gravity have any boundaries? The answer that I came up with is no, there are no boundaries if you don’t set any,” he adds.

The reason he picked up on heartbreak songs specifically was to add more depth to what is arguably one of India’s (and maybe the world’s) favorite themes in music. Gravity adds, “The album is completely about heartbreak, vulnerability and the feeling of loneliness that happens when you lose someone significant.” The rapper says he wanted to make heartbreak “cool again” when it’s often filled with tropes and cliches. He adds, “There is nothing fresh left in heartbreak songs especially. So this was about me trying to instill new life into that in my style and bringing something new to the table.”

Was it difficult to write love songs the rapper has taken on a supervillain persona in his previous records? Gravity credits being raised on cyphers early on as a rapper helped his songwriting. “Sometimes there would just be a beat from a beatboxer and we’d be spitting on it and catching the tempo, trying to make sense out of it. Because of that dexterity of how to write to the tempo and create something palpable out of it, the instinct to just grab a beat and write a verse on it that doesn’t sound off… has really sharpened over the years. It’s just gotten easier to experiment with all these different soundscapes different genres,” he says.

As a writer, he’s always on multiple projects at a time and working fast. “If I’m writing something and I don’t feel it, I switch to another song and continue. That kind of mindset really helps,” Gravity says.