LVNG Announce Enkore and Tejas House Gig Tour

In February this year, Mumbai musician Andrew Sabu alongside fellow singer-songwriter Arjit Sahai began hosting house gigs around the city as LVNG (pronounced living). Over the last seven months the gig series has grown from Sabu performing to five people at Sahai’s Juhu home to them organizing their biggest ever show featuring Mumbai R&B soul band Smalltalk to over 60 people at a house in Bandra. Says Sabu, “We only want to facilitate experiences and the main goal of LVNG is to cut middlemen. We are trying to let go of all those third parties and make it easier for the artist to have control over the entire experience.”

After organizing a successful house gig tour for Mumbai singer-songwriter Raghav Meattle to support his debut album, Songs from a Matchbox this past month, LVNG — now part of Bengaluru music collective RECK — has recently announced that their upcoming project will feature Mumbai artists; rapper Enkore and singer-songwriter Tejas Menon kicking off this week.

The ET Goes Home Tour, which was initially in the works for just the rapper, got Menon on board at the very last moment. “They have been wanting to do a collaborative project for a while now and Tejas had very sensitive dates,” says Sabu. Enkore adds, “I told him [Menon] I’m working on this, so he said ”˜let’s do it’ and the dates really worked out.”

The two artists are no strangers to each other, Menon recalls them collaborating at a gig last year at Mumbai’s Bonobo and more recently at Above The Habitat where Enkore delivered a fiery verse over the singer-songwriter’s title track from his debut album Make It Happen. “I felt like Enkore was making a departure from a more rap and beats kind of thing into soulful kind of new soul sort of stuff,” says Menon, citing the hip-hop artist’s collaborations with Smalltalk. He adds, “The fact that he appreciates what songwriters can do makes me interested in him.”

It’s a rare setting for a rapper to find an intimate audience at a house gig, but Enkore is pumped. “I know the popular belief is that hip-hop is a club thing but the reason I love hip-hop is because it connected to me at a very personal and deep level, which you don’t get to do for listeners at a club,” says Enkore. The rapper is also eager for audiences to pay more attention to his lyrics in an intimate environment, he says, “Very honestly often that gets missed out on.”

On the tour ”“ which is scheduled to hit Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and Goa ”“ the artists will each perform their solo sets and a bonus 30-minute collaborative set. “He’ll drop some bars on my songs and on his I’ll play acoustic guitar and sing the choruses, so it’s more like a treat and a chilled kind of thing for those that haven’t seen it this way,” says Menon. There is also going to be some new material from the pair. Enkore explains, “We worked on one song already and I’m sure we’re going to keep working on more.”

Ask Menon if he and Enkore are planning on extending their collaboration beyond the tour, and he says, “It’s a one off thing so I don’t know if we’re ever going to do it as often and concentrated as this.” For Enkore, he is intrigued for his music to reach new audiences and also wants to develop as an artist through the course of the tour. He says, “I’m sure I’m going to learn a lot musically also and just the way he [Menon] approaches shit and just working with him. I’m excited about that.”

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ET Goes Home Tour Dates

September 27th ”“ Mumbai

September 28th ”“ New Delhi

September 29th ”“ Hyderabad

September 30th ”“ Bengaluru

October 5th ”“ Pune

October 6th ”“ Goa