Canadian hip-hop duo Cartel Madras is made of sisters Priya "Contra" Ramesh and Bhagya "Eboshi" Ramesh. Their latest single is titled Working. The beat-driven rap song is heavy on trap and house influences.
The sisters emigrated from Chennai to Calgary and identify as queer women of colour. Cartel Madras made waves with their debut mixtape Project Goonda Part 1: Trapistan back in 2018. They list MIA, Scarface, and Freddie Gibbs as influences. “Our sound has been inspired by the complicated and beautiful music of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the passionate and fiery tone of queer house parties and the DJs who keep the night moving, and so much of the revolutionary poetry and writing from women of the Global South,” they told Indulge in an earlier interview. They classify their music as Goonda rap. They want to pay to the subgenres that have influenced their sound, but also recognise that, “we are not inheritors of those subgenre’s traditions, geographies and experiences.”
For the new video the duo posted on Instagram:
"This video was so fucking fun to make, and we can’t wait for you to see it! After we finished the song we knew we wanted to pursue the house aesthetic in the video as well. We could not be happier with how our treatment came to life with the WORKING team..."
Watch the video for Working here: