Rashmeet Kaur on Acting in the ‘Dil Khanjar’ Video, Collaborating in Cape Town and More

Back from her morning run, Rashmeet Kaur is as energetic as ever when she talks about her involvement as singer-composer on the song “Dil Khanjar,” whose music video sees the artist play a role of a female protagonist bent on avenging the death of her partner.

Just like the revelatory turn in the music video directed by Kashmiri filmmaker Danish Renzu and featuring lyrics by Sunayana Kachroo, our interview with Kaur – a multi-genre artist who’s worked in hip-hop, EDM, Punjabi pop, Sufi Bollywood soundtracks and more – comes with new goals she’s set for herself. She’s an aspiring actor and has a project in the works that intends to make her a global artist. There’s also her appearance as a contestant on action reality show Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi (which, interestingly, also features rapper Dino James) which is currently on air.

Kaur says over a call that she’s also working on “the biggest project of my life right now” out later this year. She adds, “It’s a hip-hop project and it involves multiple artists. It’s going to blow everyone’s mind […] I feel that people will get to hear a new side of me, but still intact with the rooted, Punjabi side of me.”

As an artist who’s collaborated with everyone from producers like Nucleya and Su Real to rappers like Raftaar and KR$NA and many more in between, Kaur’s openness to building a community together is at the core of such partnerships. While filming for Khatron Ke Khiladi in Cape Town, she went on to find South African and Congolese artists to work with, leading to more music that’s coming up. In an interview with Rolling Stone India, Kaur talks about “Dil Khanjar,” collaborations and being an artist who’s not bound by genres. Excerpts:

What drew you towards working on “Dil Khanjar” and how did the project come about?

So I have a friend who’s a very talented and very incredible director, his name is Danish Renzu. He showed me these amazing lyrics written by Sunayana Kachroo, who’s in Boston.

He asked if I’m interested to work on these lyrics, because he knows that I’m very inclined towards meaningful lyrics. I really resonated with the lyrics. And I thought, yes, we can definitely make something out of this.

One day we met at Starbucks Bandra, and then we took an Uber together and that’s when I ended up composing ‘Dil Khanjar.’ I was just throwing ideas to Danish as, ‘This is how I think it should be.’ We wanted to do something along the lines of [1998 song by A.R. Rahman] ‘Satrangi Re’ and ‘Mehboob Mere’ [1967 song]… Sufi, but groovy, with one loop going on, but it’s really Arabic at the same time and maintaining the Indian vibe. I ended up recording everything on my voice recorder and I still have it. I might put some BTS posts about how we did it.

It’s darker vibe. It’s the kind of songs we don’t really hear that often any longer.

Yeah, it’s not there anymore. People don’t explore those kinds of sounds anymore. Nothing against anyone, but people have changed and evolved a lot. I wanted to bring something from the past and pay tribute to what we used to create. ‘Dil Khanjar’ sounds like a film song. Whoever listens to it would say it perfectly fixed fits in a film. Sourabh Lokhande, my friend who’s a music producer, he got on board and we sat on the structure together to make it.

The music video sees you in a persona, in this different mindspace. What was that like?

For the music video, Danish and I went through a lot of concepts about what we should for ‘Dil Khanjar.’ I wanted to act, so the story’s going on, on the side. And one side, I’m just singing to my lover, who’s no more there. It was challenging also, because I have never acted acted. I have done a lot of music videos, but I really wanted to give it a try and I am an aspiring actor now.

I was thinking why not show it through your music?  I think the person who sings, the singer-songwriter, can act better than hiring any actor, because that person [the singer-songwriter] has been through all the emotions while creating the song.

We earlier thought to shoot it in Ladakh, but due to the weather, we couldn’t. We shot it in beautiful Kashmir and I was wearing a 10-kilogram lehenga and running all around Kashmir. People were like, ‘What is wrong with this girl? Why is she running and crying?’ [laughs]. It was a different experience and I’m always going to cherish it.

You’re a serial collaborator when it comes to music. How do you choose some of the projects when they come to you and also when you have to seek them out yourself?

It’s a community. Artists can’t just flourish on their own. The artist has to build the community together, bring everybody together, and discover more new artists and always try and push the boundaries.

And the only way to do it nowadays is that you have to collaborate with different people. I’ve just been to Cape Town for two months. I was collaborating with African artists over there. I think the more open you are, the more chances of building this community… the power of it increases – the chances, the potential, it becomes even stronger and powerful.

I mean, that’s great that you’re independent, but you can never have an idea that how much you can grow, how much you can learn from another artist, up until you are open to doing that. So I think for me, collaborating with different artists is very, very important for me to grow and learn.

With regards to how I choose my projects, I feel the song should be nice, whether it’s a beat, or lyrics, like in ‘Dil Khanjar.’  If I like some idea from other artists who pitch it to me, it should touch my heart first. I should feel from inside that, ‘Oh, yeah, I can give something, I can add to it.’ So that’s when I think I can take this project. I don’t go by the name, or by the views, or by the history, your past, I should just like the song. And if I liked the song that I will start building on it. That’s how sort of my mind works.

In collaborations like out in Cape Town, the boundaries begin to blur, right? You don’t think in terms of a particular community of artists either then.

Absolutely. I mean, it’s so beautiful. Music is universal. Music is way beyond our thinking, our imagination, our ideas, our formula, so why not expand and keep expanding all the time? That’s how I every day.

I want to have new ideas, I want to attract new ideas and new artists so that I can collaborate with them on and then have new creative ideas for music videos, whether it comes to my fitness also. There’s definitely exchange of culture, which is amazing. You can never tell how magical it can be. But to be open and ready to show what ideas you have and be comfortable with it and also to accept other people’s ideas, I think that’s where it starts. Like my next release is a mixture of Afro and English and Congo and a lot of different people and regions.

What can you tell us about the music you made in Cape Town?

I was there for two months and it was a very hectic and packed schedule, but I got a chance to connect with a few people and we made a tune. Now it’s a track that we have and I’m so happy. If I put Hindi in Afro music and there’s a Congolese artist who’s written a verse on it. So now I feel it becomes more than India – the sound becomes global. My target is to become global, rather than just focusing on one country or one region, or just one category of people.

Watch the video for “Dil Khanjar” below.