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The first thing that strikes you when you talk to PARIMAL SHAIS is just how effortless it is to talk shop and go over the intricacies of his art and culture. Since his debut, we’ve seen a paradoxical laidback intensity to how he approaches his craft; melding both improvisational elements and meticulously mapped-out and clicked in changes, transitions and sample flips. He paints vivid sonic landscapes that are both fresh and exciting yet also pay homage to all of his collective influences. He’s changing the paradigm of precisely what producers and musicians can achieve when they embrace and amalgamate their cultural identities with their art.
PARIMAL spoke to us about all this and more a few weeks ago in what was a thoroughly captivating interview. Take a peek into the mind of a rising star of Indian hip-hop.
Could you talk a little bit about the distinct South Indian identity in your music? What makes South Indian music, South Indian instruments and South Indian culture as a whole gel so well with hip-hop culture? What are some uniquely South Indian sounds and samples that you resonate with and how do you incorporate them into your mixes in a way that seamlessly meshes with every artist you work with? How has your culture shaped your music over the years? What aspects of your home and your people do you try to inject your music with?
Since my childhood in Kerala, art has always been a part of my education. We used to have this youth festival which was between certain schools. So since then, I’ve been around all these different sorts of art forms and cultural events and artistic surroundings. Where I was brought up; my mum’s place which is in Thalassery had a lot of different art forms like Thirayattam and a lot of things related to temples and religion. So all of these art forms have been around me since my childhood so then I didn’t know I was going to be a musician. I had always wanted to be an animator. I used to draw and shit back then but I think when I had to choose what to do for college my dad suggested that I do audio engineering. He’s a live audio engineer too and he used to do live audio back then. I eventually decided to take audio film technology for my college degree and started doing a little bit of DJing while there. Since then, I’ve always had this urge to play music and play my own music.
After college I shifted to Kochi where I met a lot of people who used to produce but weren’t professionally trained at all. Nonetheless they used to create psi-trance and I was like “Yo! What the fuck? I did audio engineering and I’m still not producing anything. Maybe I should try doing this.” So that’s when I started producing music and in the beginning, for practice I started flipping all these old Bollywood, Malayalam and Tamil tracks from my childhood. I dropped my first single with ThirumaLi, a Malayali rapper. He was also pretty underground back then and it was one of my first projects collaborating with a vocalist. He was introduced by another friend of mine, his name is Agnee Sherman, who was the A&R for my first album. Him and I did my first album together. He encouraged me to reach out to ThirumaLi to collaborate. Up until then I pretty much only used to make very experimental music which people didn’t really give a fuck about so I was almost done with it. When ThirumaLi said yes, I was thought why not try something new. We decided to sample some of our own instruments and create a new sound for the South side; something that no ones had really tried before. Even though hip-hop’s been around for a long time in Kerala, we wanted to give it a new sound. To do this we sampled instruments like the ‘Chenda’. At first it was more of percussive instruments and for the rest I was going with trappy sounds.
The single gave us a lot of media attention and a lot of people started talking about it. So then me and Agnee started talking about putting this sound onto a full album. So almost as a form of trial and error I released an album that was based entirely on South India; a reflection of my childhood. I did some research into all the instruments I wanted to use on the album. If you look at hip-hop as a whole it’s heavily influenced by jazz, with a large number of horns being most prevalent. There are also other musical instruments such as saxophones and things like that. What I did was I just replaced all of them with traditional South Indian horns and wind instruments like the nadaswaram. South India has a rich heritage of these instruments and I love the way they sounded in my production. In line with this experimentation, I decided to try the same thing with other instruments and in bring in more of my own sound. It pretty much worked and luckily for the album, whoever I approached, their approach to my project was always the same as mine. They also wanted to do something ‘new’ and something that broke away from what they’d been doing all this while. And that’s basically what gave me my sound. People really took to it and I started doing more and more shows. That’s where it all started; the end of 2019.
In South India we have a lot of stories; all of which are deeply intertwined with our culture. Hip-hop has always been about storytelling, which is why it lends itself so well to South Indian culture. I feel like the essence of it is the same across the world, it’s just that the language is different.
South Indian culture is finding more and more relevance and resonance with the mainstream. We’re seeing a confluence of Southern music, movies, food and pop culture occupy spaces that they were previously absent from entirely. Your music and your sonic palette is very much at the forefront of this Southern takeover in the culture. Was representing and leading this cultural shift always part of your vision and your plan when you started out as a producer or was it something that just happened organically as a result of the things and people that influenced you as you were growing up?
When I first started to do music, I wanted to be me; I wanted to represent what I am. That worked for me which is why in the beginning everything was related to South India. Since I wanted to represent my sound and my culture and my beginning, I chose the album to be themed entirely around South India but after that, completely open to experimenting with themes and working with a whole host of different artists; both across the country as well as across the world. Right now, there’s nothing like I want to represent South India exclusively through my music but when I’m trying to do something very serious or if I’m aiming to create a project themed on something, for me it’s easy to work with whatever I’ve familiar with and what’s there around me. Right now I’m working on another album which is also pretty much influenced by South India, not so much by the palace but on an art form from Kerala which is known as ‘Thirayattam’. It’s been going on for almost two years now and it might need another year before it’s ready. Other than that when I’m doing a single or a project I don’t really want to be pigeonholed into just talking about South India. It’s just about music for me.
Could you talk about what inspired you to put together Curry Chatti Beats? It’s a series that’s caught the attention of hip-hop and cinema stans across the country; both underground and mainstream. It’s a series that’s nostalgic, personal and yet still remarkably ambitious in scope; taking the sounds and aesthetics of Indian cinema and turning them into certifiable bangers by injecting them with the adrenaline-like energy of your production. How did you initially conceptualize all of it and how did it all come together? Can we expect to see a Volume 2?
Yeah definitely! Volume 2 is something we’ve talked about and are in the middle of working out. We’re not sure when we’re going to launch it but it’s very much in the pipeline. Curry Chatti Beats is a project between me and Lendrick Kumar. It’s funny how we started; we were both stuck at home during quarantine with nothing to do. Both of us were jobless and bored out of our minds so we wanted to create something and make use of all the time we had. An idea came to me. I told Lendrick not to worry about equipment or anything and to use whatever we had at our disposal at the time. We conceptualized a project that had the aesthetics of our surroundings; our home. I didn’t want this to be about money; I just wanted it to be a place where we could show off our skills.
We then decided to use samples from old movies and themed the entirety of the videos aesthetics on old, vintage movies; giving them a retro vibe. It was effortless to create too. We shot everything in HD and then edited it to make it look like raw, old footage. We really did just go with whatever we had. If you watch some of the episodes you’ll see that my soundcard wasn’t working in one. In Hanumankind’s episode, we had to record with a broken mic. We worked with whoever was near us or visiting us. Two other episodes happened when I travelled to Kerala and one happened on my birthday. We were partying and said okay let’s shoot one episode today. The whole idea is to not give too much of a fuck but still focus on a single aesthetic. We do everything in a day.
The inspiration for it was very much being stuck in lockdown and not being able to do anything else so that’s how it just happened. It was pretty spontaneous. Everything happens in the moment. We try not to overthink it. It’s about artists coming home, having fun, drinking and chilling.
I think the biggest question for all the producers reading this would be how you go about sourcing and shaping the ludicrously unique samples you use. There’s so much attention and nuance in terms of how you tweak and flip the sounds you work with. What sources of inspiration do you look to when it comes to sampling? Does it all happen on the fly or do you have a sample bank or a repository that you can go back to when you’re creating? What makes a PARIMAL sample a PARIMAL sample?
So it works in different ways for different projects. I have my own sample bank collection. I was able to work with a lot of artists in collaboration with SPLICE with Sandunes and Krishna Jhaveri where we created a lot of South Indian Samples. For that, I was able to meet and record more than twelve artists in person, all of whom played a variety of local South Indian instruments. So I have that bank. For another project I recently did I was able to sample two other artforms which have traditionally been undertaken by Muslim communities from the Malabar region. I also worked on a second one with an artist called Awaaz Kolkali which was part of a grant. So right now I have a lot of sounds with me.
But that’s now, back when I started it was just random. I would find samples from anywhere they were available online; go through splice and other platforms and try to work with the different sounds that were available. There’s nothing specific about it it. It’s largely about having a lot of patience and going through a lot of sounds until you find what you want. I sit with a blank mind and try and create what I want. When it’s for another person or when I’m creating something very specific then I know what I have to create and how to put it together in line with the way whoever I’m working with wants it to be. For my own projects, it’s mostly very improvisational.
Could you talk about some of the nuanced cultural differences between the scene in Kerala and the scene in Bangalore? What was it like going from the somewhat more laidback nature of a smaller city to the bustling urban jungle that Banglore is? What defines the Kerala hip-hop scene Are there any artists back home that we should be keeping our eyes on in the near future?
The scene in Kerala is booming right now. You wouldn’t believe it! There are a lot of artists and producers and a lot of albums and tracks coming out. Now even the record label culture is also building up slowly, people are investing in buying music. For me, I’m not just producing music. Because I used to be a DJ, I play hip-hop and experimental electronic music too. I wasn’t getting gigs when I was back there in 2020 but now the scene is really thriving in terms of festivals and gigs. I just played a gig at a hip-hop festival in Kerala which featured 7-8 different artists.
In terms of names you can check out MC Couper! He’s my favourite and he was on my last album. I also love Dabzee, who creates folk music influenced by hip-hop. He’s pretty experimental and he sounds great
Some producers feed off the energy of live crowds; using the energy, vibrancy and organized chaos as inspiration for more music. Some prefer the solitude and calm of an empty studio or living room; where it’s just you, your DAW and the inner workings of your mind and soul. Which group would you say you fall into, if you had to pick one? Is touring more appealing or is it the process of creating that speaks to you as an artist?
I wouldn’t pick one for sure. I fall into both categories. When I’m in my producer space I’m just at home, it’s like I’m in a cave. I don’t go out at all. But when I’m touring I love it just as much. I enjoy every tour and I love going to different places and playing for different people in different clubs. So I love doing both.
I can’t be doing only touring and I can’t be sitting at home for the whole time either; it’s a balance.
Who are some artists, both homegrown and globally that you’d like to work with? Which artists have shaped you on your journey as a musician?
Kenny Beats for sure. He’s done a lot in terms of influencing my music. There’s also JPEGMafia, ASAP Rocky for sure, and Skepta even though I’m not sure I’m quite there in terms of that sound.
India-wise I’ve already got things planned with a lot of people in the scene. I don’t want to disclose their names right now. Whoever I like to work with, I’m already either working or approaching. I always approach artists that I want to work with by telling them, “This is what I like and I love your music and if we can work together it would be great!”
