shauharty’s Desi Spaghetti Western Single Deconstructs The Influencer-Industrial Complex

I’ve always found the hero and the villain to make a better pair than most couples in romantic comedies. There’s something magnetic, almost obsessive, about the way they orbit each other. It is the best chemistry on screen — a serial killer and the detective on the case, or the abuser and the victim who's out for revenge, you know, the hunted and the hunter.

On the opposite ends of the moral spectrum, they are cast as adversaries, destined to clash but when you look closer, there's a more intimate choreography between them. As they circle one another, each sees themselves in the other — distorted, inverted, but recognizable. Their confrontation becomes a dialogue about identity itself.

In that murky space between persona and truth, is where Saddam Hussainé by Delhi-based alternative hip-hop artist shauharty plants its feet. The track is a bold, abrasive confrontation with ego in all its grotesque glory. The antagonist here is the inflated sense of self that artists, and people in general, build around their public personas. Saddam Hussainé is the character who believes his own myth. The name signals the man behind it: a megalomaniac trapped in the feedback loop of his own grandiosity and unchecked power.

shauharty describes the track as a look at “the unaddressed narcissism of a loser.” It’s a statement on how the need to be seen, praised, or followed often leads artists to become consumed by their own image. The music video, which is a 12-minute short film expands on this idea through a tightly constructed visual narrative. Shot in Jaisalmer and directed by Sheikh Zaid Bin Naseer, it plays like an Indian spaghetti Western viewed through a warped mirror: part Bollywood noir, part acid-fried fever dream.

Farookh, the character we follow, is a bounty hunter searching for a briefcase held by the elusive Saddam Hussainé. When they do meet, Farookh kills Saddam, and takes the briefcase, as was fated. But then, he leaves it behind. It’s in this final act that the metaphor crystallizes. Power, identity, and illusion — all abandoned in the sand. It's an act of renunciation, a symbolic shedding of false selves. The villain may be dead, but the hero doesn’t win by taking his place. He wins by letting go.

The cinematography, drenched in dusty yellows and saturated browns, nods to Leone’s iconic visual palette, but the language is thoroughly contemporary and desi. The visual narrative is laced with surrealism and subliminal cues: the recurring briefcase, the mirage-like transitions, the ultimate showdown that feels more like a spiritual awakening than combat. Perhaps, the bounty hunter isn’t avenging anyone. He’s confronting himself.

Produced by medicatedmints, Darzi, with additional layers by Arpan Kumar and horns from Priyansh, Saddam Hussainé’s soundscape is lush, erratic, and gripping. It dips into the dusty drama of Western film scores while channeling the chaotic psychedelia of Hendrix-era guitar work. The bassline and brass evoke vintage soul recordings, especially the kind shaped by the Funk Brothers. Pahaad, a fellow Delhi-based singer-songwriter, delivers a chilling, almost prophetic hook — reminiscent of Piyush Mishra’s ability to ground chaos in poetic simplicity.

Saddam Hussainé is the first release from shauharty's upcoming mixtape Farookh, marking the beginning of an intense inner reckoning for the artist. Conceived as an intervention by his closest collaborators, each song in the project interrogates a distinct self of his identity — the performer, the egoist, the outcast, the lover, the self-saboteur. “I want people to feel the discomfort,” shauharty says. “This project is about a matured identity coupled with sonic evolution, but also about looking at yourself, even when it’s ugly.”

Follow shauharty here and watch the music film below:

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