As a crimson mild bleeds over the shoulders of his knitted jacket and toned abs, Hanumankind roars on the digital camera, mane massive and grin wild. He stands with such energy that you just don’t even discover the medical crutch tucked below his arm or hear his winces and the sharp breath he sucks in between pictures. He holds it collectively, powering via as a result of all he is aware of is to maintain going. Within the thick of a London heatwave, NME finds the person born Sooraj Cherukat in a stuffy, blacked-out basement studio, mere days after he dislocated his patella on stage through the remaining gig of his debut UK and European tour.
“Final present of the tour, proper? I’m feeling good, feeling nice. I’m like, ‘Alright, we’re going to essentially wild out with all people,’” Hanumankind remembers, telling us concerning the ritualistic leaping routine he will get the group to do each gig. “I’m attempting to paved the way and my knee simply popped out of its place.” He insisted that he needed to end the set as a result of he “couldn’t let the parents come down and have a half-assed efficiency like that”. This resilience and recklessness are what the rapper has hinged his profession on, culminating along with his most up-to-date launch, his debut mixtape ‘Monsoon Season’.
Many of the world met Hanumankind final summer time after the discharge of the boisterous, Houston-homaging, Undertaking Pat-inspired ‘Huge Dawgs’ that includes Kalmi. It was a gritty, high-octane rap observe that climbed to Quantity 23 on the Billboard Sizzling 100 and the High 10 on Billboard World 200 – the primary time an English tune by an Indian artist ever achieved such a feat. Its virality on YouTube, TikTok and Spotify noticed it garner over 700million performs throughout all three platforms.
Earlier than that, he was already quietly sharpening his blade. Born in Kerala and, due to his dad’s job within the oil trade, raised throughout Egypt, Trinidad, Nigeria and the US, he absorbed this patchwork of cultures that also colors his sound as we speak. Hanumankind’s inventive instincts had been first lit by his mom, whose ghost tales, fables and folklore unlocked a lifelong obsession with storytelling and writing. “Tales give perspective – they’re a window into how individuals assume and really feel,” he causes. “A great story is an effective story. It doesn’t matter the place it’s from.”
“I’m not a fucking function mannequin. However I additionally recognise that I’ve affected individuals in my nation and people who find themselves like me”
As he matured, he tried to search out his calling, briefly working for Goldman Sachs in Bangalore. Quickly, although, he swapped the nine-to-five grind in favour of underground cyphers, punk exhibits and indie-rap circles. His early EPs, 2019’s ‘Kalari’ and 2020’s ‘Floor Degree’, earned him a popularity for unflinching lyricism, whereas his stay exhibits made him generally known as a bruising performer – two issues he nonetheless lives as much as this present day. As he labored to determine himself, he nonetheless didn’t chase stardom – it was at all times about tales, challenges and craft.
Fame appears to be calling for Hanumankind regardless. The surprising success of ‘Huge Dawgs’ has been a blessing for the fast-rising rapper, however it’s additionally taken some getting used to. “We made music from an area of needing to create, needing to really feel OK with ourselves,” he explains, tucked right into a cushioned workplace chair as soon as The Cowl shoot is finished. “It’s not about cash. It’s not about how many individuals we attain. It was an incessant want so we are able to really feel OK and make one thing our hearts align with. Then, abruptly, individuals are like, ‘Oh shit, ‘Huge Dawgs’…’ or no matter. A wave of consideration got here, however we didn’t plan for that.”
Since that massive breakthrough second, Hanumankind has reaped the rewards: a set at this 12 months’s Coachella, a spot on the NME 100 and a collaboration with “savant” Fred Once more.. on ‘Victory Lap 3’. Now, on his debut mixtape ‘Monsoon Season’, he needs to point out that he’s “attempting to be a greater storyteller each day”.
If ‘Huge Dawgs’ was a tsunami clearing an area for him within the rap world, ‘Monsoon Season’ is what settles after the flood: contemplative, uncooked and wealthy with private excavation. “Everybody associates me with a heavier vitality,” Hanumankind explains. “However I wish to take my time to consider issues and put it down in music as a result of that’s the one area I really feel I can actually be sincere.”
The mixtape isn’t a style stunt or a model train. Unpolished and deliberately jagged, it chronicles years spent grinding in silence, constructing identification via trial, failure and intuition. The songs, constructed lengthy earlier than virality discovered him, mirror that inside and emotional urgency, like philosophy masked by 808s and brooding synths. In a manner, Hanumankind is wiping the slate clear whereas honouring how his “previous self received [him] right here”. “I wish to step into issues with a recent headspace,” he says. “There’s loads I’ve been holding on to previously that I additionally have to let go, and this mixtape is that, too.”
Musically, the mixtape sidesteps expectations of Desi-pop dramatics and leaned-out Soiled South replicas, two concepts usually pushed onto him. Houston, the town the place he spent his childhood, “was an enormous a part of my life”, however his globe-trotting upbringing has at all times ingrained the concept of fusion in him. “My roots are necessary to me, however they’re not what defines me,” he states.
“Music is the one area I really feel I can actually be sincere”
What actually defines Hanumankind’s artistry is his philosophical accessibility. Although he’s “not very spiritual” and has his personal “turbulent” relationship with God, his non secular upbringing in a Hindu family clearly influenced this want for increased studying. He named himself after the Hindu god of self-discipline and loyalty, Hanuman, in any case. Or possibly he’s emulating his inspirations – Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Logic – because the wordsmith that he’s. Nonetheless, he conveys reality in a manner that hits instantly.
There’s a throughline of freedom throughout ‘Monsoon Season’, exploring each its liberating and confining nature. “This entire endeavour that I’m on is a quest for freedom,” Hanumankind says. “The surface world would possibly see that I get to make music, you get to do regardless of the fuck you need, however your freedom can change into what enslaves you. I’m additionally confined to my head, my actions and what limitations and potentialities that brings.”
That pressure reaches a boiling level on the Rudy Mukta-assisted ‘Trigger’, the mixtape’s ethical anchor. Over disjointed, haunting manufacturing, Hanumankind unpacks how perception techniques can each floor and eat us. “What’s the trigger you imagine… that can make you push previous your limits, go above and past?” he questions on the observe, analyzing the road between function and obsession. “[Would you] do what it takes even when they’re alarmed, even when what it takes is to harm and to hurt?”
“There are such a lot of individuals who have leaned right into a trigger, and it’s a great factor for some time till it lastly isn’t,” he explains. “Typically all individuals know is their faith, or their political alignment, and humanity and love kinda goes out the window.” That paranoia of slipping into blind devotion or empty striving isn’t summary for him. It’s private. “If I don’t dive into issues that actively interact my thoughts, soul and spirit, I’ll begin searching for issues that can provide me feeling or function, or the phantasm of pursuing one thing,” he confesses.
“My roots are necessary to me, however they’re not what defines me”
So, what’s Hanumankind’s trigger and function? Is it the liberty to experiment like he has finished on ‘Monsoon Season’? Is it to be a mirror for India’s youth and even an envoy of the nation’s rap scene? “Certain, there’s strain,” he feedback on the latter. “It could possibly overwhelm you and eat away at your happiness, your consolation, your love for issues. I strive to not get misplaced within the sauce… I’m no fucking good individual. I’m not a fucking function mannequin. I didn’t get into this considering that I used to be going to be. However I additionally recognise that I’ve affected individuals in my nation and people who find themselves like me.”
The rapper hopes to “convey a semblance of change in the best way different individuals see” Indian creatives. He defiantly sticks his center finger up at those that diminish his identification: “Shut the fuck up. You don’t get to inform me what the fuck I’m imagined to sound like or be like. You already know nothing about our historical past and tradition.” And if it’s not him, then it’s going to be another person to take the torch: “India is shifting. We’ve received artists who’ll blow your minds… I’m simply doing my half.”
Hours after the studio session, Hanumankind squeezes in his first mixtape playback at boutique bar Spiritland. The group at this small soiree is predominantly South Asian – and vocal of their appreciation. Whereas discussing the will to characterize the true, on a regular basis expertise of India, somebody within the viewers shouts, “You’ve finished us proud.” Hanumankind replies: “Actually, I’m honoured and I’m blessed for that, however now the inner journey is to make myself proud.”
Whereas he encourages everybody “to face for one thing” on ‘Monsoon Season’, Hanumankind remains to be determining what his personal path appears to be like like. “To me, it’s at all times been greater than music,” he muses. “This can be a quest for me to search out out extra about myself, and in flip the world, my individuals, all the pieces round us. By way of my journey of studying, of looking for reality, possibly I’ll be capable of go away one thing behind: one thing of affection, respect, or simply one thing worthy of remembrance.
“In the long run, you don’t actually have any management over something. No matter occurs, occurs.” Although the street forward stays unwritten, Hanumankind will proceed his mission, one step at a time.
Hanumankind’s ‘Monsoon Season’ is out now by way of Capitol Information/Common Music India.
Take heed to Hanumankind’s unique playlist to accompany The Cowl beneath on Spotify or on Apple Music right here.
Phrases: Kyann-Sian Williams
Pictures: Faysal Hassan
Styling: Connor Gaffe
Styling Help: Frank Williams
Label: Capitol Information/Common Music India