Recently, the Indian hip hop scene has been dominated by gully rappers like Divine and Naezy who sing in Indian and other regional language and brokeout probably two years ago. They gave us ‘gully rap’, which was their gritty, street-style-laced Indian offering. Then comes Tienas a.k.a. Tanmay Saxena, who most reckon is the finest producer/rapper to emerge out of the underground hip hop scene in Mumbai. A 22-year-old musician by Azadi Records—the record label behind hip hop star, Prabh Deep. He rhymes in English and his music is pretty different from the Mumbai rap prevalent now. And now has dropped his all new LP, O.
All my songs are experience based, about a situation or instance...incisive tracks about complex matter like consumerism and depression. ‘They are immensely dark and personal,’ he tells me. Indeed he is different from the peer rappers despite the heavy influence of Eminem, whose film called 8 Mile flipped Tanmay’s life around. ‘I dropped out of school at 15 because I Loved football. But after that I stopped playing that as well. After watching the film, I got a lot of confidence in life.’ He started dressing like his idol, got an identical hair cut. Coined Tienas that comes from how Eminem is a homonym for the American Rapper’s real name Marshall Mathers.
A pretty good wordsmith, his lyrics expertly navigate between the personal and the political. And his skills on the mic are even more impressive—given that he was born with a speech impediment. ‘It’s the rhythm that helps me. Nothing else. There is no magic here of God’s plan. It’s just the rhythm that keeps me going.’ His debut full-length album is the embodiment of the anomaly that his existence represents in the Indian hip-hop industry. He tells me more...
What inspired O?
It was time for me to come up with my first album and I wanted to make music that was catchy as hell.
How have you treated it differently compared to your first mixtape? Was the creative process different?
The main idea behind making this album was for me to enjoy the process and for me to be able to make music that I myself find catchy. I thoroughly enjoyed this because I do believe all the songs are really catchy. If I don’t have fun with a song, I’ll put it aside and work on something else that’s fun and enjoyable for me. It was a pretty normal process. Half the time I make music, the other half I fail at making music. The process is and will always be the same: Get an idea, put it to work and share.
Tell me about the artists you collaborated with and how did it affect the creative process?
I really believe that everything falls in pieces if you just sit back and breath. I did not have to chase all these great people, they were just there at the right time.
Cyclone is with Prabh Deep and he’s a great artist we all know. Mo told me the song was too short. It had written it during a cyclone scare in Bombay. I made Prabh listen to it one day and he loved it. Sent me a verse a couple of days later which I think is one of his few verses on love. I loved it, so it just happened naturally.
I was going through Sez’ beats and I liked one. Around the same time I read this article about ‘20 years since the release of Romeo Must Die’ or something and ‘Die Die Die, Die Romeo’ just came to me and I thought it was catchy as hell and Die Romeo Die was created.
For the interlude, I made the beats way back in 2015. I had this idea for Seedhe Maut to do the Interlude but pictured a completely different vibe. I sent SM a couple of beats they liked this one and the rest is history.
Lastly, what is planned for the latter part of 2019?
I don’t know yet but I plan to keep releasing more music, doing more tours and hopefully making a lot of money.
Text Hansika Lohani Mehtani