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[On 16th-19th January, 2019, Homegrown is throwing a first-of-its-kind music festival in Mumbai designed to celebrate the city’s vast and diverse music culture. Dive deep into a wide variety of dynamic workshops, exhibitions, curated tours, panels, pop-ups, performances and parties that promise to be inclusive of all kinds of tastes and people.
There’s something for everyone, click here to find what’s perfect for you.]
Beyond the ‘glitz’ and the ‘glamour’, the clothes and the smoke, the booze and the drugs, house parties have an innate ability to make. things. happen.
Call me an idealist but something about the magic of the morning light filtering through sleepless nights makes people more likely to believe in possibilities. In fact, our story right here starts with a special one, where two creatives were introduced. When one of them free-styled over the other’s beats, the crowd felt something special. This isn’t only the story of how Aditya Alamuru and Shayan Roy met–it’s also the setting of the music video of their latest collaboration, ‘Vincent Chase Slippin’.
Aditya Alamuru goes by the name of Malfnktion. A versatile producer known best for adding a distinctly Indian flair to the art of sampling. His two EPs, ‘Hindustani Rascal’ and ‘Vote For Worms’ have garnered universal acclaim for being fresh and innovative. Shayan Roy on the other hand is on his way to being a household name for the internet generation. A recognisable face of BuzzFeed India, he’s predominantly known for making light comedy content along with taking occasional stabs at the kind of content-making that dares to challenge the status quo. It was a mutual admiration for each other’s work that drew them together.
“I was introduced to Aditya by my best friend when he played a gig in Mumbai a few months earlier this year. We all ended up going to a house party later that night, where I did an impromptu freestyle on a beat that was playing on the speakers. Aditya seemed to dig it, and I was already a huge MALFNKTION fanboy, so we kept in touch and started bouncing ideas off each other”, says Shayan. Aditya reciprocates the sentiments by saying, “Dude, Shayan’s a G. He’s not released his music but you can tell he’s been honing his skills for some time. Usually what I do is, send him an instrumental I’ve been working on. He’s really tied up with Buzzfeed so he’ll message me at 4 am, saying he’s writing something to the song and when I wake up the next day, he’s already recorded and sent me some ridiculous verses.”
But house parties have more of a connection to this story that one would think. This entire project was set into motion when Aditya approached Only Much Louder(OML) to produce a song for their Bacardi House Party Sessions. Having given the creative freedom to shoot the music video, Aditya’s management team at KRUNK put him in touch with Swamini and Anirudh of DCMBR Films. “Adi and Shayan had sent us a small brief as to what specific elements they associated with the song (dhol, dancing crowd etc). And we decided to do something quirky, fun and surrealistic with it. The whole idea of the music video was to make you think but at the same time not take yourself too seriously”, says the production house.
The entire music video revolves around a certain Ms. Lobo(played by Shivani Shivkumar) slyly orchestrating the events so she can steal Malfnktion and Shayan’s music(namely the track, ‘Vincent Chase Slippin’). The music video is equal parts smooth and equal parts quirky. One moment you have characters swaying to the music, while on the other you’ve got them breaking the fourth wall. The visual aesthetics are matched by Malfnktion’s solid production. “As an artist, I truly believe in the aesthetic of minimalism. I’m very careful about what samples I use and how I use them. Vincent Chase Slippin’ is no different. The skeleton of the song is built from the Tamte rhythm which, if you catch it, is a very popular Indian street percussion rhythm”, he explains. Lyrically however, Shayan explores surprisingly deeper themes, “I based the lyrics of “Vincent Chase Slippin” off of a personal struggle of mine. I’ve had some goals and dreams for years, but I often find myself dealing with distractions, be it people or otherwise, along the way. I get easily sidetracked by shiny things, which give you instant gratification or validation. In this case, the lyrics refer to a failed romantic relationship of mine that left me emotionally ravaged, and made me question my motivations. Though I’ve moved on from it and have a lot of great things going on in my life, it still comes back to bother me when I least expect it.”
Little do people know that Shayan has been involved with music from a fairly young age. Having been a vocalist in a blues band in college, music is second nature to him so it’s no surprise that he decided to hop on Malfnktion’s track. And by the looks of it, there might be more collaborations between the two of them since Aditya is set to drop a new project named, ‘FNKNATION: Rhymes and Recipes.’ But for now, enjoy Vincent Chase Slippin’!
Brought to you by #BacardiHousePartySession.
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