Mumbai Rapper Krantinaari is Heading to Roskilde Festival in Denmark This Month

Sometime last year, Mumbai-based rapper Krantinaari aka Ashwini Hiremath was selling merch and began a conversation with Danish producer J Vibes aka Jackie Van Tran, who was studying in New Delhi at the time. While it led to the duo working together on the 2022 single “Indradhanush,” the producer also told Krantinaari about the non-profit organization Rapolitics.

Along the way of associating with Rapolitics, they were setting up a platform called Re:Act at Denmark’s most well-known festival, Roskilde. Exploring human rights issues through hip-hop and poetry performances, talks and workshops, Krantinaari will be performing and speaking at Roskilde this June as part of the Re:Act stage, on June 25th, alongside Cuban rapper David D. Omni.

Krantinaari, who just released her seventh song “Wildstyle” with artist and beatboxer Manasi Nene this week, will perform for 10 minutes, followed by a 20-minute conversation and then dive into another 10-minute performance of her songs at Roskilde. It comes on the back of the artist traveling to 40 places over the span of 12 months performing her music. The setlist at Roskilde includes “Indradhanush,” a verse from one of the songs of Wild Wild Women, the hip-hop crew she’s part of,  plus the inspirational song “Wildstyle.”

Ever the busy artist, Krantinaari also recently launched a live band called The Basement Project. A song from that project, called “Anushaasan,” will also be performed at Roskilde. “That song is more on the larger spectrum of questioning the system and what exactly it is to be an isolated artist in this system. So it’s important for us to have a political view and not just one sided view but a more aware view,” the rapper says.

She isn’t too worried about any possible language barrier that might come up, given that the Re:Act platform also has conversations around the music to allow Krantinaari to give audiences context to her music. But beyond that, she’d be happy if the songs just play. “I think just important words, just a couple of words… if it hits you, then you stick around and you really go beyond the language and you actually want to know more,” she says.

For the longest time, J Vibes was sending Krantinaari the Roskilde lineup for her thoughts. It includes everyone from Kendrick Lamar to Busta Rhymes, Lizzo, Blur, Queens Of The Stone Age, Lil Nas X and Burna Boy, among others. “I could not really get the scale of it. Because in India, I’ve never seen such a huge festival with lakhs of people. It’s really mindblowing,” Krantinaari says. She’s also looking forward to check out more Scandinavian artists and outside of the festival performance, heading to Copenhagen and Berlin to check out local music scenes.

The end goal, with all of her work as a musician, is for conscious music to be taken more seriously. “There is a bigger world apart from just going through this rigorous, machine-made structure of the music industry. There is a larger world outside who actually seek to listen to your sound and understand what is the idea of you with music,” Krantinaari adds.

Get more details about Krantinaari’s performance at Re:Act here. Listen to “Wildstyle” below.