Lil Kabeer is inevitable
an interview spanning hip-hop, cricket, and giraffes
Lil Kabeer has been a stalwart in the Indian Hip-Hop scene for a while now, and if you’ve been listening to Indian Hip-hop, chances are that you’ve encountered his music, be it his solo work, his production (as Yung Satya), his numerous features, or his work with collective J-Block. You might have even encountered one of his several personas—these is Lil Kabeer, Baby Aflatoon, Yung Sunflower and so many more. As he puts it, Lil Kabeer aspires to be “the side hero” of this rap shit. This means that he will always try to help those around him, acting as a steppingstone in aid of the protagonist. What goes around comes around and armed with a large rolodex of collabs with the who’s who in the rap scene, Kabeer is set to take the leap in his journey toward stardom.
NANO with Rebel 7 marks a two-and-a-half-year hiatus from music, and as he will indicate in the interview, he is back and better than ever.
I catch Lil Kabeer after he finishes up a game of turf cricket. He is currently playing in a self-organized mini-league with a couple friends, highlights of which you can catch on his Instagram page. Documenting his journey keeps him accountable, but also, he enjoys watching his body contort while he bowls. Once a bowler, he has recently embarked on a new journey as a batsman. He is also, like me, a massive CSK fan. Dhoni is the north star for us all. Thala for a reason. Over the course of our discussion, you will see a lot of cricket references being made. Consider the above blurb as context for this occurrence.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
tejas: NANO is a project that marks the end of a two-and-a-half-year hiatus and a return to music. Are you marketing NANO as a comeback project? How is it being packaged for the world?
Lil Kabeer: So, NANO was originally intended to be a film. This was then reduced to a 15-minute short film, and it finally ended up being shelved due to lack of funds. The remnants of this are now the skit, White, Lice, and Bitches. As a project, I have seriously worked on it for a couple years now, and for me personally, this is a comeback project. But also, this is a project completely in collaboration with Rebel 7, so calling it “my comeback” would be unfair to him.
tejas: What was the hiatus like? Where was Lil Kabeer these past two-and-a-half years?
Lil Kabeer: So, when I first started listening to rap in the 12th grade, I was on my way toward becoming an engineer. I was a studious kid, but once I encountered rap, I was completely hooked. This drove me to quit studying and began to make music. To earn money, I began to make beats for a lot of artists in the US and UK, but after a while, I quit because in order to sustain such a career, you really have to forgo a side of yourself musically. It is a complex hustle. While figuring out what I wanted to do next, I stumbled upon design.
tejas: Like graphic design?
Lil Kabeer: More like visual and creative design, yeah. It seemed very interesting to me, and also, as an art-form, it was more commodified, allowing for a viable career. Of course, this was before the AI came in(chuckles). From there, I stumbled onto copywriting and marketing, and over time, I got so into the field that I moved to Bangalore to work for a startup. We developed content, marketed, and ran podcasts for tech companies. When I pick something up, I tend to go all in, and this hiatus was a consequence of me rabbit-holing into these avenues.
tejas: And now, you’re back.
Lil Kabeer: Yeah, I am back, but I still need to keep finding work. I also did not stop making music in my time off, so I never really left. But the part of my brain that makes me anxious to make more money is relaxed now. In a sense, the hiatus was me exploring different options while earning some money. Also, this is something most people got to do in college, and I’d never gotten to experience a life where I can do different things. But all the while, I still kept making music on the side. I see art in a way that I go outside of it to find it.
tejas: That makes sense, you get this holistic perspective from which you can create better. And also, the more your life experiences, the more you are able to pull from and that bleeds into your actual art.
Lil Kabeer: Yeah, that’s what makes an artist. They seek inspiration from all around them and then go into these little rabbit holes and delve deeper. That’s sort of where my time went. I do have some regret about branching out so much, though. In my time away, I have seen peers rise up the ranks and establish themselves as full-time musicians. But I guess that is the tragedy of Lil Kabeer— to contend with conflicting emotions as a result of being passionate about different things. Kind of like, why didn’t I pick up batting earlier? I used to bowl because I played with a lot of Bhaiyyas who wanted to bat. But recently, ever since I’ve started picking up cricket again, I have begun to bat too, and I have realized that I’m pretty good. I have good batting sense.
tejas: Makes sense. You’ve planned so much as a bowler, that you can now see the game from two sides. So, with NANO itself, I want to work backwards. Was White, Lice, and Bitches conceived first? How did the skit come about in the context of the album?
Lil Kabeer: Not exactly. We had a couple songs recorded by the time we had the idea for the skit, we added our individual songs to the mix later on. The skit came as a result of wanting to market the EP in a different way. Rebel and I got together one day to brainstorm, and we ended up writing the script for the skit. Yung Waris then took the idea forward and fleshed out the characters with the actors in mind.
tejas: I see some influences from the Key and Peele script.
Lil Kabeer: That’s right, we were just surfing through a bunch of skits online, and this was one of the skits that came up. This is very much inspired by the Key and Peele script.
tejas: But you guys have added your own twist to it. There are more characters on here, each person has a backstory.
Lil Kabeer: Yeah, we wanted to add additional elements to the whole thing and flesh out each character a little more. You have these little extra details, like the policeman chewing paan. We have an extra lawyer character, and the policeman and his sidekick have a relationship going as well.
The skit ties back to the makings of the project. We named the project NANO because, well, we’re both short, and also, the Tata Nano had image issues, something we both relate to. No one ever gave the Tata Nano a shot, you know? It is also a snappy name, and as a whole, encapsulates what the EP is about. Fun songs with emotion.
So yeah, once we decided on the title, we were thinking up ways to market the EP. We had a Mad Max skit planned; we also had a bank heist sort of skit planned. Both of these were shelved due to money, life’s ultimate constraint. But White, Lice, and Bitches spawned from these ideas.
tejas: And how did the tracks on the EP factor into the ideas you had with the skits?
Lil Kabeer: So, the original intention was to make a 3-song EP, but we ended up expanding it. The songs themselves talk about different things. Rap music gives you the freedom to be whoever you want and talk about whatever you want. The goal with NANO is to talk about different things over bouncy beats. We’re going head-to-head while also trying to create something fresh. We didn’t give it much more thought than that.
tejas: Most people want to do many things. But no one ever gets around to actually doing it. So, things get left half done, and people give up. Ada Toofani touches on this. And you had actually released this track earlier. What prompted you to add a remixed version on NANO?
Lil Kabeer: Rebel really liked the beat and wanted to hop on. So, we re-did some of the parts and put the remixed version on the EP. While the track itself has a fun, bouncy energy to it, my verse looks back on my life so far and contends with some of the self-doubt I am facing and have faced.
tejas: Does this tie into the themes of Qainaat?
Lil Kabeer: Qainaat is a separate idea, but I will say that when artists get together and just write, multiple ideas meld into each other and what you finally see is probably a mix of three-to-four ideas. All my songs stem from a mix of concepts. Personally, I write in free-form format. I step into the booth, and whatever I think, I rap. I approach a verse in the same manner as Lil Wayne. He just goes into the booth and spits, and you see several different ideas merge into one another on his verses because he is essentially just freestyling. I try to do the same. Just like how MS Dhoni was instrumental in shaping my view toward cricket, Lil Wayne shapes the way I approach rap.
tejas: What was the energy like in the studio when Qainaat was being recorded?
Lil Kabeer: So, whenever I’m collaborating with different artists, I try to write as fast as possible. My goal is to have the tightest verse in the least possible time. I’m competitive like that. It also gives me more time to observe how others work.
tejas: I see. I want to step outside the EP for a moment to double-click on a theme you bring up on Qainaat, which is working a nine-to-five. Paint me a picture of your nine-to-five life, or as you refer to the corporate version of you, of nine-to-five Kabeer. How does he contrast with Lil Kabeer?
Lil Kabeer: So, while NANO was recorded as Lil Kabeer, my music when I was 9-5 Kabeer was very different. I was trying to leave behind music, and so if you were to hear those tracks, you will hear a lot of pain in them. Think of it like a player with a career-ending injury. Your potential never reached its peak. Mark Boucher ended his career at 999 dismissals.
tejas: Were you worried that people might see you as a “could-have-been”?
Lil Kabeer: No, because I see myself as above external validation. These things apply to the average person, but I want to be one of the greats. And to the greats, the come up is inevitable. None of the narratives ever affected Sachin, Bumrah, or Steyn. They were always destined to make it. Lil Wayne put so many hours into the rap game that his presence as an elite is assured.
tejas: Expanding on the Lil Wayne bit, he sort of just exists in his own bubble. After a point, that can turn into an echo chamber. How do you ensure you do not fall into such a mindset?
Lil Kabeer: In India, we are blessed to be in a generation where rap is democratized. So, good music and different characters can always break through. That will always keep me in check. Also, in the US, eras came one by one. In India all eras are happening at the same time. We get to grow and explore all kinds of sounds at the same time. Also, we tend to copy the West, so we will keep creating with that scene as a north star. I will never be short of goals to chase or inspirations to draw from.
tejas: That is an interesting outlook. On a related, and perhaps more lighthearted note, you talk a lot about animals in your tracks. For example, you have a track called “Aadha Octopus”. On Hawai Chappal, you talk to a giraffe. What do you see in animals that makes you want to talk about them?
Lil Kabeer: Well, obviously, the metaphor aspect of it. It helps me hide what I really want to say and whoever gets it, gets it. I also find nature to be beautiful and interesting. Yung Waris is currently in the process of falling in love with birdwatching, and some of that energy has begun to rub off a little on me as well. Nature is full of quirks, and that helps me draw inspiration. Crazy thing is though; I never want a pet. I myself live like one (chuckles). I am totally the opposite of a person you would imagine talking about animals. I like talking about them, but I am by no means an animal-lover. I also love people who love them. (chuckles) In a sense, this is me peeking through the looking glass.
tejas: How did the Calm feature come about on the track?
Lil Kabeer: Rebel sent it to calm who liked the song, and he wrote a verse for it. Very straightforward.
tejas: Delving a little more on the personal, what’s your relationship with Rebel like? How long have you guys been working together?
Lil Kabeer: So, I was featured on the track Dakati by Quest. That was actually a feature I did two years before the actual song dropped. Rebel visited me one day with Waris and Unfuckman and mentioned that he liked my verse on the track. We then kept sending each other music, and over time, the EP began to come together. I really fuck with the way he flows. He experiments a lot with flows and not a lot of people do that in the scene. I’ve been going deep into lyricism, delivery, and with this EP, I try to go deep into the flow aspect of rap. I do some choppy and off-beat flows on multiple tracks and Rebel is a major inspiration behind this. I feel like the scene does not give him his flowers for his flows, but this is a bit more nuanced, so I don’t expect people to get it. He is underrated in this aspect, like Suresh Raina’s inside out stroke. It was very smooth. I see Rebel as a great batter I can bowl to. In that sense, NANO is basically my nets practice.
tejas: And how do Wolfie(wolf.cryman) and Faizan fit into the EP and this ecosystem?
Lil Kabeer: Wolfie is like a big brother to me, and I look up to him in a lot of ways, especially his comedy. Wolfie came over one day, and I just played him a couple songs from NANO. He really liked the songs and did two demos the same day—Namkeen and Qainaat.
Faizaan and I have lived with each other for most of my music career and so you probably see him in a lot of my songs. I feel very comfortable making music with him. He is the first person I send my music to.
tejas: That’s cool. So, what’s next with NANO? What should the readers look forward to?
Lil Kabeer: Now that I am back from my hiatus, I want to try and make money with music. I am no longer satisfied with just getting 10k streams or being palatable to 2k people. My biggest task now is to make music that reaches somewhere. I never found the game of going mainstream to be interesting before, but now I am interested. I want to make money with music. Feels like a new world to me. I plan to get NANO to blow up on reels. I want to develop as a storyteller and portray my POV to the audience.
In the future, I also want to step away from rappity-rap and make some romantic songs. My next 7-8 releases are all love songs. Love is omnipresent, it is slow, clean and happy. I love the freedom love offers. For example, Rog was a song I made about my relationship with rap, but most people see it as a love song. I think the real world is hate-based and the imaginary world is more love-based.
tejas: Then, what will happen to all the characters you have created so far? Is Lil Kabeer going to be the focus?
Lil Kabeer: I have actually started writing my own comic books centered around this one heroine and it features all the characters I have created thus far. I plan to write an exclusive piece where Lil Kabeer is a mad scientist, and these characters are all offshoots of his experiments. An experiment goes wrong and he ends up killing them all. And then, I will start afresh. This will probably happen in the next six months. The comic will be featured on my website, currently a work-in-progress. I owe it to the fans to give the characters their due.
tejas: Excited to see this come to life! Seems like a very different arc from what someone like MF DOOM did. As you enter this new era, who is Lil Kabeer bumping right now? Who are your current inspirations?
Lil Kabeer: Yeat. Love his production choices. It is rewiring how I listen to music. I also listen to honorable C-note-produced songs. Majorly Yeat, though. 2093 showed me new ways to make music. The beats have a lot going on and is a significant leap from rap production of the past.
tejas: But you want to make love songs, so where’s the inspiration for that coming from?
Lil Kabeer: Rom-coms, books, and life. My soft music is original to me; it is not inspired by other musical elements. I put on specific music/albums because I can play them daily.
tejas: As we wind down the interview, any messages to the fans?
Lil Kabeer: Watch women’s cricket. Love yourself. Fix yourself.
tejas: Any new drops we can expect soon?
Lil Kabeer: Aashiq will be the first single that will kickstart my romantic era, so stay tuned. Lot of collaborations on the way as well.
tejas: And so, finally, as you mark your return, does the self-proclaimed side hero become the main hero?
Lil Kabeer: I will always be the side hero. Side heroes help people become great, and that gives me a lot of happiness. Good things always come back to you, provided you choose who to help, and how to push them forward. I want to continue doing this to my companions. I want to continue to be the side hero.