Rapper Krantinaari released her new single Anushasan recently. The track is produced by Mumbai-based producer and sound engineer C4GE aka Ganesh Murthi.

Krantinaari lives in her own world of observation. She imagines her surroundings like a moving image (a film). A film that has a running past besides her, and present that she keeps stepping in and out from. She takes references from her experience as an army NCC cadet and imagines her current story in the box of the past. She morphs into a news reporter role in Anushasan, although she doesn't adapt the attire of a standard reporter externally, but tries to portray issues of her surroundings through that role.

Her observations address intense issues of celebration, of dangerous innovation like the nuclear bomb by Oppenheimer, and she addresses cyber threats by bots and hackers, addresses the chemical drug abuse, the controlling media, the mental health issues due to social media, and other such subjects. We have become ‘a Race of a Rat race.’ as though we’re put in a box and covered in. Anushasan means disciplining oneself at all given times leading to a rigid life.

She chooses a very fresh path of experimenting with a new genre of grime that is hitting the roots of the underground hip hop scene. Krantinaari takes on grime first-hand, so that it’s not limited or becomes a male-dominated music genre. After rigorous back and forth in the creation of this song, it led to creating the bass line for the song herself. C4GE aka Ganesh Murthi motivated her to try her hands on creating a bassline for this song. He made her step ahead to access her army vocal commands to achieve the sound he created. Krantinaari and C4GE, not fully satisfied, stumbled upon Aryaman Singh’s effort with the guitar line that occasionally helped to fill in the song perfectly.

Journey of the video

The observations were documented while Krantinaari’s travel stories throughout the country. She decided to collaborate with young, wild and experimental filmmakers from IDC IIT Bombay.

Directed by Aryaman Singh with cinematography by Abhimanyu Ullas, they added a very dynamic visual palette. All three of them decided to do a very impromptu shoot and just capture visuals that relate to the song, while loitering around in the city.

No plans, no grids was the idea that suited as a counter to the title. Things did work extremely well, and it brought in a fresh rawness to the visuals of the song. A special role was played by Vibha Karnad, who is a Bharatnatyam dancer from IIT Bombay. She helped them create a personality of the song through a performative art. Expression through classical dance in a hip-hop song is another layer Krantinaari had a vision of - making the rigid/traditional roots meet the raw/street life. Krantinaari doesn't see any limitation while she experiments with many different genres and layers of art. Exploring, molding and extracting the best of different genres is becoming her strength.

Ashwini Lingaraj Hiremath, AKA Krantinaari (meaning revolutionary women), is an Indian rapper and graphic designer based in Mumbai. Owner of a compelling flow, rapping in Hindi, English, and her native language Kannada, her music approaches themes of women empowerment, sustainability and education. Krantinaari is co-founder of India’s first all-female hip hop collective Wild Wild Women, focused on strengthening women representation in India’s hip hop scene and expanding the collaborative network in that community. Recently, she was a part of the Hers Is Ours residency program with multidisciplinary female artists, offering interactive workshops and performing across remote areas of Rajasthan, where the rigid hierarchical system prevents lower caste women from engaging in music making.

Ashwini is currently undertaking research on the Dalit, the Lingayats, and the Adivasi, all historically discriminated communities in India, for a music project she is developing bringing awareness to the struggle of these groups. Krantinaari’s active creativity, energetic character and team-oriented disposition as organizer, rapper and designer all attest her great artistry and value as a collaborator.

Not only that she is a believer of sustainable lifestyle and has self published a book called ‘Earth’ that is A to Z about sustainability. Her debut song “Krantinaari” has been performed at several places with Base Foundation Roots, 10,000 Lions as well as with special appearance with Sarathy Korwar and more. First Indian Rapper to perform at ROSKILDE INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL.

Anushasan Single Credits:

Written and performed by Krantinaari

Produced, mixed and mastered by C4GE

Video shot and edited by Aryaman Singh (Zeux) Abhimanyu Ullas

Special appearances as performing artist Vibha Karnad

Distributed through Madverse India