Hear India’s Rap, Rock and Metal Worlds Collide on ‘The Clash’ Compilation

This past April, Mumbai-based gig promoters Himanshu Vaswani and Nikhil Udupa from “subculture consultancy” agency 4/4 Entertainment introduced us to a brand new gig series called The Clash. The gigs which took place in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune aimed to blend cultures, languages, genres and art forms. 4/4 Entertainment is now out with a four-track multi-genre collaborative EP titled, The Clash: Edition One EP, which features the artists that were a part of the first edition of the gig series. Udupa says, “The whole idea of doing The Clash was always the thought that we’ll do a gig, we’ll release an EP and we’ll release music videos.”

The four-song EP features a collaboration between Mumbai hip-hop group Swadesi and metallers Providence on the in-your-face opening track “Kaali Yug,” and follows up with folk band Boombay Djembe Folas and electronic artist Func blend their sounds on “Orodara Sidiki” while the penultimate track “Pushing Through” is a mix of alt rock and memorable vocal hooks by New Delhi electro-rock group Karajimo and rap verses from hip-hop collective Khatarnaak. The final track, “Space Station, ” is a fascinating meeting point for Bengaluru post-rock outfit Space Behind The Yellow Room and Kerala-based alternative hip-hop collective Street Academics.

Udupa explains, “I wanted them to sound like two different personalities, two different styles of music that are trying to come together and create one unit of a song.” The promoter also states that the recording process for the songs was done very quickly and that the artists were given limitations (like limited studio hours) so that they could deliver an in-the-moment performance.

With music videos for each song off The Clash: Edition One already under production, Vaswani and Udupa plan on expanding The Clash beyond music for their future editions. The pair is keenly looking at areas such as martial arts, dance and filmmaking for their next edition.

Udupa explains, “The main aim we have is that we’re not chasing genres but we’re going to go chasing art forms and try to bring people who are involved in different subcultures under one platform.”

Listen to ”˜The Clash: Edition One EP’ here.