Nanku Insists He’s Still the Same Loverboy, Just a Little More ‘Refined’ on ‘Pyar N’ Stuff’

Bleached hair, lipstick-stained kisses and hearts drawn on his head, Nanku may have adapted a new visual persona, but he says not much has changed about his songwriting.

A few weeks prior to releasing his fifth album Pyar N’ Stuff, he was revisiting old music, including the 2022 EP Milansaar (which he released as as Udbhav before he adapted the moniker Nanku). He tells Rolling Stone India, “I realized I was doing the same thing back before as well. I still had goofy lyrics… entertaining music. It’s just that the packaging is a bit different now, and I think that’s the only difference. I’m still the same person, but the product is a bit more refined and more targeted to better fit the ‘industry standards,’ or however you want to call it.”

Released via Warner Music India, Pyar N’ Stuff brings 15 songs featuring various collaborators, all steered into pop and hip-hop by the singer-songwriter and producer. As he’s maintained over the years with singles like “Kamikaze” and “Crazy,” the goal has always been entertainment. Nanku says, “Pyar N’ Stuff is for everyone. It’s not Netflix & Chill anymore, it’s ‘Do you wanna Pyar N’ Stuff with me?’”

If you’ve seen a shift in the way Nanku has conducted himself and the way he’s put out music, it’s influenced by the guidance of artist Yo Yo Honey Singh. He even joined Nanku and go-to collaborator Karun on stage at the New Delhi stop of their Do Bhai tour on Jan. 11, 2026, to perform songs like “Mile High” from Singh’s album 51 Glorious Days. Nanku recalls that Singh’s surprise appearance was a will-he-won’t-he guessing game, until it wasn’t. “Then we get a beep in our in ears that, okay, he’s here. Guys, ready, ready, ready. I still don’t know what happened, bro, it was just mad. It was out of this world,” he adds.

Since his 2022 single “Crazy,” there’s been a slow transition into Nanku’s affable, chocolate boy era. He credits a lot of it to working with Singh. “The first thing that happened was a lot of mind expansion. We talked more than working. We talked a lot about the music and about how to present yourself as an independent artist.”

The result is a sparkling, confident Nanku, who also credits photographer Abhinav Bhandari for the slick, vibrant photoshoot. Just two days before their “Naughty Nanku” music video shoot, the artist’s now-distinct bleached crew cut and fur coat look came from a suggestion by designer Prakhar Chauhan (from the clothing brand PRKHR), who was inspired by Madonna’s album cover photos. “He thought I wasn’t going to do it,” Nanku says with a laugh.

Shreya Josh of Gurugram-based visual studio Lovable Rebels came on board to do the nail art, even painting kisses and hearts onto his head to complete a look that feels like an evolution of Nanku’s Loverboy era.

Beyond the visual appeal, the musical appeal of Pyar N’ Stuff doubles down on writing playful love songs teeming with bright, guitar-inflected hip-hop and R&B production flourishes. “I think what I do a bit differently is that I add that goofiness to it. It’s never a ‘serious’ romantic song, like how Bollywood does it,” Nanku explains.

In “Thode Hum Thode Tum,” Nanku is particularly proud of the tongue-in-cheek line, “Cutie ne jo kaati dil pe chunti.” It also references actors ranging from Shah Rukh Khan to Naina Bhan, best known for her role in the Netflix series Class. The groovy, folk percussion-driven “Tere Peeche Mein” ends with “Bana kutta mein/Tujhko hi soongta rahu (I turned into a dog, just sniffing you).” Nanku says, “I think that’s chef’s kiss.” The classic singalong pop/hip-hop of “IttiFiyah” recalls Milansaar-era Nanku with lyrics like “She’s an INFJ.” Karun waxes poetic about a “cosmic entity” on “Rubbers,” and there’s talk of “Mil ke saath hum mitaaein global warming (Let’s get together and eliminate global warming)”

Still, it doesn’t mean there isn’t depth or some poetic firepower to the songs. It’s perhaps one of the reasons why “Pyar Ki Si” is a clear hit from the album. Nanku picks up his line “Tu husn ka sagar, dooba jisme mein aakar (You’re an ocean of beauty, in which I’ve drowned).” He says, “People don’t talk like that.”

With songs like the catchy, fast-paced “Pyar+Tum,” the energy is intentionally dialled up to be not just a love song. “It’s that song you maybe listen to when you start your day and think, ‘Aaj toh mein faad dunga duniya ki’ (I’m going to tear the world apart), I’ll do what I want. The sonics give you that kind of motivation. The pumping feeling comes from a place of love, not hate,” Nanku says. He points to how a lot of rap aims for a similar vibe, but often “comes from a place of hate.” He explains, “Those songs are coming from a place of ‘You’re terrible, I’m the best.’”

He finds a like-minded collaborator in Ahmedabad hip-hop star Dhanji, who joins with a distinctly shouty verse on the Gujarati song “HTKT” HTKT (“Have Thi Khali Tu”). Nanku says, “The point of having that song in this album is my partner, she’s Gujarati, and I wrote this song for her. What is a more prominent display of love than writing a song in their language, to get out of my comfort zones to sing to them in their own language?” Performed in 2023 in Ahmedabad at show alongside Ahmedabad rap artists like Dhanji, Siyaahi and Acharya, Nanku says “people could already guess the hook” of “HTKT” in the first listen.

In the pursuit of entertaining music, Nanku’s music does veer into something that’s classically male, giving borderline teen hormonal levels of songwriting on previously released singles like “Classmate.” That extends to Pyar N’ Stuff as well, which the artist insists is not that serious. He says he’s never come across anyone offended by his lyrics. “I mean, even subconsciously, I don’t write things that necessarily offend people. One time, a very dear friend of mine – he’s a guy – looked at the lyrics ‘You so sexy/Let me sex you’ and said, ‘Yeh kya lyrics hai?’ (What kind of lyrics are these?) and I was like, ‘It has something in it.’ When it came out, everybody loved it,” Nanku says. The track in question, 2023’s “Kamikaze” with singer-songwriter and producer Faizan, has over 16 million streams on Spotify.   

Nanku adds, “I used to ponder this long time ago, how everything around all of us is mostly entertainment. Humans just need something to pass the time. That is where my fascination towards the entertainment industry comes from. That’s why I want to be an entertainer.”