To Celebrate Handloom Day, Raw Mango Tapped Up Bengaluru Rapper A-KAL

Through a collaboration with rapper A-KAL, Raw Mango continues its exploration of handloom as a living cultural practice rather than a relic of the past.

Released for Handloom Day, the single uses rap as a medium to explore the diversity of India's handloom traditions.Raw Mango

Published on:

07 Aug 2026, 6:05 am

2 min read

Summary

Raw Mango's latest cultural project, 'HANDLOOM Y'ALL', brings together fashion, craft, and music in a unique collaboration with Bengaluru-based rapper and professional tennis player A-KAL (Adil Kalyanpur). Released for Handloom Day, the single uses rap as a medium to explore the diversity of India's handloom traditions, highlighting the regional histories, identities, and cultural contexts that shape textile practices across the subcontinent.

For over a decade, Raw Mango has approached handloom as more than a textile tradition. Through films, collaborations, and cultural projects, the brand has consistently sought new ways to expand conversations around craft, heritage, and contemporary identity. This Handloom Day, it continues that tradition with an unexpected medium: rap

Titled 'HANDLOOM Y'ALL', Raw Mango's latest collaboration brings together the label's long-standing commitment to Indian textile traditions and the lyrical voice of Bengaluru-based rapper A-KAL, also known as Adil Kalyanpur. Culminating into a single that translates the language of handloom into a contemporary musical form, making conversations around craft more accessible to newer and younger audiences.

At the heart of the project is the idea that handloom traditions across the Indian subcontinent are deeply diverse. They are shaped by multiple factors, resulting in textiles that are distinct in both form and function. A Chanderi weave serves a different purpose than a Bengali textile, just as every regional craft tradition carries its own aesthetic vocabulary. Rather than flattening these differences into a singular narrative, HANDLOOM Y'ALL celebrates plurality, using rap as a vehicle to communicate the richness and specificity of these traditions.

The collaboration feels particularly fitting given A-KAL's own creative practice. Known for blending sharp lyricism with reflections on identity, mental health, and contemporary culture, the 26-year-old artist brings a thoughtful perspective to the project. Beyond music, Adil Kalyanpur is also a professional tennis player and former ATP Challenger doubles champion, making his journey one that bridges seemingly disparate worlds of sport and artistic expression.

With HANDLOOM Y'ALL, Raw Mango demonstrates how conversations around craft can evolve without losing sight of their roots. The single reframes handloom not as a relic of the past but as a living, dynamic tradition that can find expression through contemporary cultural forms. In doing so, it invites audiences to engage with India's textile heritage in a language that is immediate, rhythmic, and unmistakably of the present.