Rudy’s world has always hummed with melody. Growing up in Malleshwaram, she was the kid sister sitting outside Carnatic classes, absorbing ragas long before she could name them, while cassette tapes of old Hindi and Telugu songs played through the house. With almost ten years of formal Carnatic training behind her and a brother who slipped her an iPod loaded with Linkin Park and early electronic dance music, her ear was tuned simultaneously to crunchy guitars, to classical phrasing and radio pop hooks. That unlikely collision now shapes her sonic sensibility: intimate, R&B?leaning songs that prize writing as much as vocal texture, often self-produced and fiercely personal. On Entropy, her debut project, and on singles like the achingly vulnerable Love & Limerence, Rudy turns diaristic lyrics and moody, atmospheric production into something quietly radical; a distinctly Bengaluru voice discovering just how far it can bend genre without ever losing feeling.
The first project, Entropy
My initial plan with this EP, or with the first single from it, Funny, was to just try out something on my best friend’s iPad. I just borrowed it from her, and then they announced the lockdown, so I wasn’t able to give it back to her. Basically, wanted to try stuff on GarageBand and see what it does. But then I ended up liking what I made and wondered how to put it out there. I made one song, and then made four more songs. It was my first experiment with music and it turned out to be a beautiful surprise as that is what defines my life right now. I wrote, sang and self-produced the whole thing.
Love & Limerence
The current dating culture inspired the song, Love & Limerence. This one was about dating culture and how everything’s super disposable to people these days; I wanted to emphasize that. I found the word limerence very interesting. Honestly, that was one of the main reasons the song came about. My producer Kalmi has done a great job on the song. His range is amazing. For this song, particularly, he had made a piano piece on which we built. He sits in Hyderabad and I am here but this song came about in person when he was playing the piano. I sometimes produce myself also and like to experiment with arrangements.
Process of Writing-Heavy Music
If I find a word or a phrase that stands out to me or is memorable, I will just quickly note that down on my notepad or notes app. I may not write something immediately, but I’ll note it so I can come back to it later. When I sit down to write, it’s a habit for me to scroll through my notes to see if there’s something I’ve written a long time ago, because there’s a good chance that I don’t remember it. So I look for it. For example, with Love & Limerence, the first line that came to me was 'a hard-bodied young people', the first line of the song just came to me and then I built on that because I really liked that line. Sometimes I am literally just in bed, about to pass out, and a whole song comes to me, so I have to write it down. I make sure the rhymes are right and all of that, but it won’t even have a melody. I just write the structure down and then later decide to record and find a beat. It’s writing-heavy versus other things; most of the time I end up writing first.
Adapting Music for Reel
A shout-out to my director, Deepika Menon, for doing an incredible job. This was her debut directorial project and it was a dream to work with her. The concept is basically modelled around trying to get through to somebody who’s avoidant, which is what the song is also about. We thought we needed to bring that to life somehow, and we decided the usage of plastic around a person could symbolize putting up your guard and always having it up. There’s a barrier between you and this person, and we thought that was a fun, interesting way to symbolize being avoidant. The ending, where you see fighting and there’s blood involved, was meant to make it as visceral as it feels visually strong.
This is an article from the January EZ. For more such stories, read the EZ here.
Words Hansika Lohani
Date 30.1.2026