Hear New Delhi-Bred Artist Slyck Twoshadez and Producer Premium’s Confessional EP ‘Aadat’

India-bred, U.S.-based hip-hop artist Slyck Twoshadez aka Prashant Verma picks up right where he left off with his 2021 album Umreeki with his latest EP Aadat, exploring identity and the self through a different lens. This time around, he teams up with Indian producer Premium aka Hitesh Kapoor and brings in a few heavy-hitter guests across the six-track record which released in October.

Among the oldest planned tracks on Aadat are “Maze Me” featuring Mumbai’s Dee MC and “Rehne Do” featuring vocalist Anumeha Bhasker. Slyck Twoshadez says, “Me and Dee started talking about collaborating around a decade ago on Facebook but got occupied in our artistic and professional pursuits. Dee was touring the US early in 2022 and we were talking about collaborating. Me and Premium had already put together a scratch for the track and Dee loved what we did on the track. She was in New York and we decided to hit the studio and do a fun video the very next day.”

With Bhasker, who is an Indian classical vocalist, the rapper says their friendship goes back to 2008 when they were undergrads studying the same program in Chandigarh. “We knew it would always be exciting to fuse our styles and come up with something. To start off I asked her to record the hook on a very basic instrumental which Premium had put together. Once her vocals were in Preemo created a masterpiece around it which allowed me to pour my heart around the pros and cons of solitude,” Slyck adds about the track.

A fortuitous collaborative project between Slyck and Premium, Aadat started when the New Delhi-bred rapper was introduced to the producer via rapper NoNation whilst working on Umreeki. Created predominantly over Zoom calls, Aadat fits the bill when it comes to a seamless rapper-producer team-up. The pair didn’t even meet until earlier this year. “Within the first 12 hours, we played at [venue] Raasta for our album launch, recorded the intro to my solo album and shot two music videos,” the rapper says.

Rappers NoNation, Gravity and Smoke bring the heat bar by bar on “Posse Cut,” a classic round-wise “rappity rap” song as Slyck terms it. While “Posse Cut” is about togetherness and honing one’s resolve, “Rendezvous” takes aim at the game of seeking out only the popular and clout-forming artists in one’s circle, featuring New Delhi rapper Spaz. The rest of Aadat sees Slyck turn his attention inwards in a way he’s never attempted before, as heard on the title track, “Rehne Do” and the outro “Therapy,” which has references to how the rapper used to smoke 13 joints a day and is now on to more adult responsibilities like house-hunting with his wife. “I have never been afraid to be vulnerable and introspective in my music, in fact that was one of the reasons I loved music and began writing. As much as I enjoy being cocky and confident on a record and display flows and lyricism I think it is equally important to show and address what is going on in my personal life,” he says. That said, there’s no lack of introspective songs by Slyck Twoshadez, as he points to his 2015 single “Tough Man Gotta Cry” and “Hold Your Hand” off Umreeki in 2021.

With music videos for “Maze Me” and “Posse Cut” out now, Slyck has here will be more videos coming out until the end of 2022. In addition to shows in North America, the rapper is already working on his next solo album Upwards and Onwards. “It’s going to have around 13 or 14 tracks produced by Premium and Asura. I am also working with MC Kode on a podcast series called, ‘Butter Chicken Gang Podcast’. Plenty of stuff in works,” he adds.

Listen to ‘Aadat’ EP below.