Would you believe it if we told you that the idea for a 27-track strong, multilingual hip-hop album was conceived while watching the sitcom The Big Bang Theory? Well, believe it! What’s more is that music producer Ankith Gupta stumbled over Stephen Hawking’s iconic Time Traveller’s party concept while watching the show and got inspired to revisit old numbers like Po Nee Po from the film 3. The running theme in all the projects by this youngster seems to be, “stand out, do something nobody has done before.” Ankith created a record when he released a track in 2020 that had 14 languages in it! His recent album of 27 tracks with 51 artistes definitely adheres to the theme. “I want to do something different, but at the same time it has to be quality music. You can expect trap, boom bap, lofi, hyperpop, drill, chill hip-hop and many more experimental genres,” says the young hip-hop producer about Time Machine, his latest offering that took him about a year to put together and that is distributed by music platform, maajja. The first track in the album samples Stephen Hawking’s vocals talking about the time travel party that got Ankith started.
Behind the scenes
In fact, before composing the sound, Ankith is often found staring at a spreadsheet, matching artistes like A-Gan, Deon, Joshua Kirubagaran and Kainto from his database to genres and sounds that in turn work with his track. “I ended up initiating collaborations between artistes I had picked for my tracks and who didn’t know each other before I had matched them,” avers Ankith who is pursuing a degree in business administration but adds that it is the process of making music that fascinates him and not the business.
Catch the groove
Favourite track? “Well, I cannot pick one as every track has its own unique place and I don’t have a lead number. But, I have to mention Red Light Green Light that is less than four minutes but took me more than three months to create — it has six Bangladeshi artistes contributing to the track and it really excited me that there are so many undiscovered rappers in our neighbouring countries and I was getting to hear their stories and culture through their music!” Also, look out for Lata Mangeshkar’s classic Tere Bina Zindagi Se Koi that has a drill track featuring rappers SKIVINNIE and Yung Chaaku from Dubai. “The choice of samples were also a way for me to pay homage to the artistes of yesteryears,” says Ankith.
Catch Ankith Gupta DJing on September 3, at Twilight by The Park Chennai, 8 pm onwards.