Yungsta Digs Deeper Than Ever Before on ‘Ruhbaru’ with Sez On The Beat

New Delhi hip-hop artist Yungsta aka Yash Chandra lifts the veil on his most personal stories and struggles yet, with producer Sez On The Beat on his latest song “Ruhbaru,” taken from his upcoming debut album Meen.

Yungsta – who is also part of rap duo Full Power with Frappe Ash – considers Meen to be his debut solo album in the way that his previous records like Mehfil in 2021 because that was a mixtape and the forthcoming collection of songs are more thematically tied together. “People know about struggles and my story, but this was a clean slate scene. There have been mixtapes before this, but the album standard had been set in my mind, much like Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt and Kanye West’s The College Dropout,” the rapper says.

On “Ruhbaru,” Yungsta raps about his journey so far, becoming a more vulnerable version of himself even as he retains his gruff delivery in Hindi and English. “Mental instability/I meditate by writing,” he says on the song. From trying to record and rap since he was 10 years old to learning hip-hop on a Windows XP, cyphers in New Delhi to a nod to the crew/company Spit Dope Inc, “Ruhbaru” is loaded with references that unravel like pages of Yungsta’s storybook. It’s topped by a sample of his father’s words of encouragement and a blazing solo by producer, songwriter and guitarist Aman Sagar that closes the song out instrumentally.

Yungsta says, “The kind of production Ruhbaru has is cinematic. It immediately felt like an important connecting piece of the album, either an intro, interlude or outro.” The sample of the rapper’s voice is an easter egg from Mehfil, which also starts out with a voice note from his Full Power co-founder Frappe Ash. “It’s sort of a continuation from there. This album ends up with Frappe’s voice note, saying some motivational stuff that’s a continuation of what he said in Mehfil. It just so happened that it turned out this way, it wasn’t planned,” the rapper adds.

While most of Sez’s production on the song is rooted in atmospheric guitar licks, “Ruhbaru” is truly elevated with Sagar’s solo, something that Yungsta says he needed in the song owing to his longstanding love for rock music. “I was a rock kid before I was a rap kid […] On a very basic level, I think guitar solos are crazy. In whichever song I’ve heard a guitar solo, it feels like an instant classic,” the rapper says.

The creation of “Ruhbaru” unlocked ideas for Meen’s sound and lyrical storyline, with work starting back in early 2022 during lockdowns. “I went back home to write on this beat that Sez made and brought it back, it felt like, ‘This is where we start off.’ This vibe, this delivery, personal style of writing… this track was the motivation I needed,” Yungsta says of the lead single.

Although the rapper has been introspective in his music before, he only points to his 2019 single “Kaamyaabi” (“It’s an underrated, low-key song,” he says) as the closest thing to “Ruhbaru” in terms of theme. All of it brings Yungsta to talk about how he’s a student of hip-hop all the way. “Up until now, we were just learning how to rap growing up. Even after more desi hip-hop came up and went crazy, I feel we’re all students in some way. We’re students who’ve learned how to rap, but now we’re learning how to be songwriters, how to break out of that verse-hook-verse mold,” he adds.

At the center of Meen – which is releasing via The MVMNT and Mass Appeal India – is Yungsta’s way of using sonics for storytelling in a way that he’s never attempted before. “From a writing point of view, I wanted to tell people things they don’t know about me yet. I’m sure there are tens of thousands of people who know me but there’s still more to know,” he adds. The full tracklist and featured artists on the record are yet to be revealed but that’s another aspect of Meen that the rapper says is concept-driven. “It’s also a celebration of people around me and their stories, the friends who are featured on the album. To tell my story better, I’ve taken stories of interconnected people to make it make sense as a bigger picture.”

Watch the video for “Ruhbaru” below.