MC Stan Talks Debut Album ‘Tadipaar’ and New Direction

Approaching a million followers on YouTube soon enough, Pune-bred hip-hop artist MC Stan aka Altaf Tadavi originally earned wider audiences through WhatsApp groups and communities, where his rap video recordings were shared. Through 2018 and 2019, Stan rode a huge wave with songs like “Wata” and “Khuja Mat,” positioning himself as an unflinching rapper who wanted to butt heads with fellow artists.

He captures all this and more on his debut album Tadipaar, whose title is a reference to growing up in the neighborhood of Tadiwala Road in Pune before moving to Mumbai. “I know most people don’t have time to listen to stories about someone’s life, but for those who are, this project and this song is for them,” the rapper says in a statement. Across eight tracks and nearly 40 minutes, Tadipaar isn’t a rapid fire listen that rap records often become these days, but more of a deep dive. The journeying title track of seven minutes and 46 seconds, a shapeshifting six and a half minute song called “Amin” and an outro dubbed “MC Stan Type Beat” clocks in at nearly 11 minutes, which makes for an intense listening experience in which Stan doesn’t relent.

He says in an email interview, “To be honest, if given a chance I would probably even make half-an-hour long songs! The lengthy songs in the album weren’t intended to be that long but when I was working on them, I felt their vibes and wrote an extra verse or two.” Tadipaar was released song by song with a music video for every track except for “MC Stan Type Beat.”

Watch the video for “Amin” below. 

With the audio and visual experience, Stan certainly hypes uncaring, often crass lyricism and debauched settings that’s heard and seen in hip-hop globally, but his approach as producer and rapper remains flittering and experimental, hopping from slick trap verses to introspective bars in which he grapples with family and religion. “I aimed towards putting out a series, a movie type of series of events, and I think the public took it in that way too. They patched the storyline together and derived the sequence of events that transpired, though a lot of people seemingly made their own versions of what I was trying to portray,” he says about the videos. Although he vulnerably raps about how his mother doesn’t approve of his lifestyle or his look on “Amin,” Stan says he looks forward to his mother’s reaction the most with his art. “…More than anyone else’s,” he adds.

With a mammoth album out of the way, Stan is keen on “doing some features with artists on the scene” and is shifting gears for a new sonic approach next. “I’m working on new school stuff (think the Lil’-and-Young hip-hop sound) for the year ahead. Skinny jeans along with a mumble rap kinda vibe… and playing around with melodies,” he says.

Watch the video for “Tadipaar” below. Stream the album here.