The Reign Of Kalmi: The Producer Behind 'Big Dawgs' Is Showing Us How To "Make Good Music"

“Make good music” is a remarkably straightforward mission statement and it's fundamentally shaped the artistic trajectory of homegrown producer Nikhil Kalimireddy aka Kalmi. Over the last decade, the Hyderabad-based creative has carved a path of excellence across homegrown independent music as well as more commercial spaces. In 2024, riding off of the momentum stratospheric his stratospheric collaboration with Hanumankind, he’s staked a viable claim as one of the most sought-after producers in the industry. It’s fitting that the frantic, rip-roaring and pulsating sonic refrains on some of his heavier songs act as a foil for the serenity and calmness with which he approaches his creative process. 

As we start our conversation on a somewhat sultry monsoon afternoon, I’m instantly put at ease by how calm and almost zen-like he is when going over the intricacies of his artistic journey so far. While some artists hide behind a veneer of bravado or forced arrogance, Kalmi instead chooses a grounded, scientific sincerity that allows him to be a sponge for everything he hears and sees. Like any good scientist, his body of work is the result of constantly experimenting and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. There’s a meticulousness, intelligence and matter-of-fact enthusiasm for every facet of the music-making process that allows him to create what can only be described as bonafide homegrown sonic alchemy. 

“I truly believe that most songs are an iterative effort,” he smiles. “There are days when I’m burnt out and I know I’m not assessing the track well but the one thing that’s so important is having the right set of people around you: people who can judge the song for exactly what it is. As much as artists hate taking criticism from their peers, when someone close to you tells you something about whatever you’ve made, there will be truth there. It’s about understanding their feedback and not taking it as a jab or a shot at your track. That really helps.” 

The producer strongly believes that no artist is bigger than the music they make and that it’s very important to let music flow through you naturally. He asserts that to make good music artists need to exist in a space where they can accept constructive criticism and use it to grow. “It’s important to always have sounds that elevate your music and to find out how your favourite artists made those sounds,” he elaborates. It’s this attention to the provenance of ‘good sounds’ that allows him to, in a sense, reverse engineer and augment those moments of musical magic that are quickly becoming his signature.  “While it might sound a little cocky, making good music for me is basically about making music as good as it can be in that moment.”

Kalmi’s first forays into music were him trying to recreate the sounds of his favourite 00s artists, from Kanye to Avicii. Drawing on his family’s musical influences and the things he heard growing up he began to form an image of the artist he wanted to be. Growing up in Vizag, Kalmi was deeply influenced by the music of Telegu cinema and paid special attention to the way they did their entrances of key characters and how this synced with the music to emphasize a narrative or trope. “When I think of myself, I always see myself as the person who gives the artist I’m working with that sort of an ‘entrance’,” muses Kalmi. “I see myself as the conduit through which to spotlight their artistry. I may not always have my face out there, but my music should do the talking.” 

This approach is clear to see in the way he undertakes his collaborations. From Kavya to Rudy Mukta, to Hanumankind, Kalmi’s worked with a bevy of rising and established homegrown artists. With every release, he’s able to centre the artist while augmenting their sound. The spotlight is never directly on him, but his arrangements, samples, and synths become the glue that holds everything together. Like some truly iconic producers before him, Kalmi likes to stick to the periphery and create sounds that elevate the stylings of the artists he works alongside. “I think my production always makes sure that the artist's energy carries through, even though I don’t necessarily exist as an ‘entity’ in the song,” he says.   

In engineering college, despite music taking something of a backseat, his mother’s old laptop became his sonic proving ground. This and a succession of roommates with eclectic electronic music tastes opened him up to a world to a world of new possibilities and allowed him to draw on inspiration from pioneering artists like Flume and Odesza. He became a sponge for new music and honed his ear both through creating and by curating and programming events for initiatives like REProduce while in Hyderabad. “When they (the artists) used to show me new music, I automatically gravitated towards it,” explains Kalmi. “And because I used to do ad work around the same time, it made me feel like I could actually turn this into a viable career.” 

It was around this time, that the producer decided to change his name to the moniker that he’s most known for today: Kalmi. “When I was in 9th grade my friends started calling me ‘Kalmi.’ When I was in engineering, I went through a couple of more ‘traditional’ DJ names but I asked myself: ‘Why do I have to keep banging my head against the wall for a name when it’s right there?’” 

The name change coincided with the solidification of his distinct identity as an artist and he notes that it allowed him to break beyond limiting notions of genre or style. “I realized once I shifted to Kalmi, that there was no end to the kind of music I could make,” he says. “After I changed my name it felt like I could do anything and still make it sound good.”

While he’s found success as a hip-hop producer, he makes it clear that beyond the classic and seminal albums, he doesn’t listen to a lot of hip-hop on his own time and looks to electronic and film music for inspiration more than anything else. “Every year there’s a different artist that I find resonance with. While you’ll see shades of inspiration from artists like Kanye and Pharell, I do draw on other types of music more heavily. I’m like Bumblebee from Transformers: every year I get a new outlook.” Rather than replicating the sound of the artists he likes Kalmi emphasises that it’s more about interpreting the energy of their sound and using it to create something that’s entirely his own. 

This approach is clear to see with his recent global smash hit collaboration with the enigmatic Hanumankind. We don’t really need to talk about ‘Big Dawgs’, because its numbers and sheer cultural impact says everything we need to. Unless you’ve been living under several rocks, you’ve heard it; you’ve seen it; you’ve bumped it.  It’s given India our first real hit across the global music landscape for a very long time and has resonated with individuals from a variety of different cultural backgrounds, age demographics and identities, one that’s unfettered by the usual oriental exoticism that the West is all too keen to paint us with. Kalmi’s ear for the authentic gave us a beat that is both familiar and wholly distinct in its composition. Its unmistakable motif of an engine in flux elicits an immediate reaction in anyone who hears it and has very much become a homegrown war cry of measured strength and ambition. 

The scale of Kalmi’s achievement with Big Dawgs could go to anyone’s head, but Kalmi, true to form, remains grounded. “As of now I still feel the same,” he says wryly. “Maybe I did lose it when we were on Billboard - maybe for a brief 20 minutes. But to be honest as a human being I don’t want to hold on too tightly to any of my achievements. I want everyone reading this to understand that this win is just as important as all my other achievements. Even though we’ve hit the mainstream, if didn’t have all of my previous achievements, this never would’ve happened. I know how long it took me to get here. To all artists: never underestimate a piece of work that’s being given to you. No matter how small or insignificant you think it is, it all matters and contributes towards the bigger picture.”   

While Big Dawgs was Kalmi’s breakthrough, it’s the result of a decade of him learning, inventing, and reinventing his sound and the sonic palette with which he paints. It’s thousands and thousands of hours spent engrossed in sample libraries. It’s thousands more working alongside collaborators and honing an unparalleled ability to bring out the best in every single one of them. It’s a snowball effect of what happens when you commit to an unwavering dedication to your chosen craft. 

What’s more, Big Dawgs barely scratches the surface of Kalmi’s artistry. Over the course of his career, he’s collaborated with an eclectic mix of artists and brands to create a sonic tapestry that draws on his heritage, identity and the sheer variety of influences that have shaped him as an artist. This made me think about whether there’s a set of sounds that truly define Kalmi as a producer. Is there a signature ‘Kalmi’ sound? 

“I can’t ever recognise what my sound is but my friends and people that know my music always can,” he responds. “I’m subconsciously doing it just to make the track sound good and I’m always looking for interesting sounds right from the get-go. But I never really stop to think about what would make the perfect ‘Kalmi’ sound. I suppose there are specific melodic intonations that really feel like me, but I could never say for sure.”

While it's difficult to pinpoint a signature Kalmi sound, he does admit that there’s a consistency in the “weirdness” that he puts into every song he creates. Tracks like ‘Genghis’ and ‘Big Dawgs’ only serve to highlight how effective this weirdness is when it comes to pulling people into the sonic worlds he creates with his collaborators.

In fact, his collaborations with Tata Motors and the sounds in their Tata.ev line of vehicles is something that has already gone down as a watershed moment for a homegrown sound design and is indicative of how in tune he is not just with the music he makes but with the world and the people around him. Kalmi doesn’t just create sounds; he taps into emotions and memories and uses this to take people on a journey crafted and informed by his process. 

Alongside a talented team, consisting of his manager Teja, collaborator Tarun Gupta, and a handful of other producers including Three Oscillators, Kalmi painstakingly created a self-contained experiential auditory environment that accompanies anyone who’s driven a Tata.ev vehicle: from the engine noise to startup sounds to feedback alerts to the menu and UI interface inside the car. In order to do so, Kalmi immersed himself in the world of UI and UX sounds and conducted extensive research into what makes for the most appealing sounds for consumers.

Kalmi says that the drawing board sounds they had when he joined the project lacked life and didn’t really tick any of the Tata team’s boxes. To remedy this, he shifted to Pune for six months and worked closely with the Tata.ev team to create sounds from the ground up. He relied on a psychoacoustics team consisting of Manish Manohar and Bhavya Garg, from IIT Rourkee, with Mrunmayee Padmagirwar assisting with project management, to give him key insights that he would incorporate into his sound design and created about 30 diverse sounds for the Tata.ev initiative. Kalmi also shouts out the work of Advait Mahesh, who assisted with the project. Each sound that was used in the Tata.ev project took consideration of factors like ‘annoyance’, ‘engagement’, and ‘attention’ to craft the perfect auditory experience for drivers.  

Much like with his music, the sound design for Tata.ev was an interactive process that involved them experimenting with a variety of instruments and samples while in the car. After finding what worked and what did’t they narrowed things down and closed in on the final selection. The team only had about 15 days to work on the hum of the engine because of production deadlines. Kalmi paid extra attention to that aspect of things due to how delicate it was and how constant the sound of an engine is in any EV vehicle. “I didn’t want anyone to be irritated with the sound I went with, so I had to be extra careful,” Kalmi says. “The hum is a small .09-second loop of a wave sample. This becomes the idle hum of the engine. When someone presses the accelerator, the loop pitch and volume modulates. You have to give the engineers the correct snapshot of modulation to prevent any sort of uncomfortable sounds. The main hum that we selected is a granulated piano with a sine wave.”

In many ways, the Tata Motors project mirrors Kalmi’s ethos as a producer and underlines the fact that he’d rather be heard than seen. “I’m completely okay with not having a face. I only want everyone to hear the music and the sounds that I make.” 

I conclude our conversation by trying to get an understanding of how Kalmi approaches his collaborations. I want to know if there’s anything in particular that’s allowed him to be so successful.

“It’s important to remember that any artist you work with is a work in progress. It’s important to be aware of that. An artist is trying to figure out a song while they’re also trying to figure out themselves. The reason I think it’s been relatively easy for me is because I try to provide space for them. I don’t ever look at being the frontman in any of the projects I do. I don’t let my ego get in the way and say ‘I think it should be this way.’ I think a lot of producers need to know when to step back. You’re not doing it for the clout; you’re doing it to make good music.” 

You can follow Kalmi here.

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