City rappers back with multilingual EP

By Aparmita Das | SHILLONG:

Multilingualism is the flavour of the day and it can’t be challenged in terms of relevance. Reason? It’s a global world and as wise men often say, the more languages you know, the better it is. Keeping in line with this philosophy, Sagnik Choudhury and Soumyadeep Dasgupta, the Shillong-based rapper duo, Leo Boys, are back with a brand new multilingual extended play (EP) – Trinity Tapes Volume I – featuring English, Hindi and Sylheti (a dialect of Bengali).

“It is our third release in as many years. We felt that the name Trinity Tapes would really resonate with the soundscape of the entire project; three-languages in-the-third-album kind of vibe, you see,” said Soumyadeep, stressing the significance of the number three in the mix.

Today’s rappers, unlike the good ol’ days of old-school hip hop, are not about songs about their personal lives, but about keeping a holistic, fish-eye view of the world with an intrinsic urge to change it for good. And the Leo Boys, over the years, have been doing their part by releasing songs with relevant messages in this regard. And Trinity Tapes Volume I is no departure from that “norm”.

“The album consists of five songs – Change the World, Keu Nai, Trinity, Andhera and No vacancy, and each of these songs have different pertinent messages for the listeners,” said Sagnik. He further added that the album will be accompanied by a video of Change the world which speaks volumes about “Earth and the beings she nurtures”.

Elaborating on the song, Sagnik said, “We all have played a part in exhausting whatever nature has given us in some way or the other. Be it the houses we live in, which come at the cost of cutting down trees, the food we eat comes at the cost of lives of other animals and plants, and the list goes on.”

For the rapper duo, “give back from where what is taken” is the motto behind the Change the World. “And in today’s music scene, you will not see a large number of people listening or talking about this. The reason is simple, goodness is really easy to overlook,” opines Soumyadeep.

Taking The Meghalayan through the other songs in the EP, the duo took turns explaining the meanings behind the other four songs. While Keu Nai (nobody’s here) speaks about the scope of Sylheti hip hop and the need to have its own fan base and artistes, Trinity featuring all the three languages, is the artistes’ take on a classic old school hip hop.

The fourth is Andhera resembling darkness and the fifth song No vacancy simply means “there is no longer any room in our lives to accommodate feelings and things that we don’t want and don’t need”, says Sagnik.

Of all the five songs, it’s Change the World, which is close to the duo’s hearts. “Being our own EP, choosing one song of the five is a difficult task. But Change the World brought out a different style of lyrics writing from us. The process of making this particular track too was difficult, but the end result left us very proud and satisfied,” said Soumyadeep.

Music-making usually involves two processes – you either sort out the musical elements first and then compose the lyrics or the other way round. For Leo Boys, it’s the latter that they prefer. “Firstly, we have a beat selection process from the stock of samples we have. Then we get in touch with our producers to make the selected beats into a track. Then the lyrics are written to be rapped on the track, which is mostly done on the same day of the recording,” Sagnik said. Then the usual process of sending the track for mastering follows, he added.

The team of Leo Boys was on a hiatus for a year with no releases until now. And during that period, like most musicians, they spent long hours honing their skills. “Trinity Tapes Vol 1 has been in the making ever since and we have a lot more projects in mind in the coming days. So, 2022 is going to be a good year,” Soumyadeep said.