Reyan on his new single, Raathri, diaspora dreams and doing it his way

In an increasingly crowded music landscape, where algorithms reward volume and virality over vulnerability, Reyan, an independent Indian-origin artiste based in Ireland, is quietly building a world of his own. His music is a heady blend of Afrobeats, R&B, hip-hop and Malayalam lyrics that flip fluently between English and his mother tongue. It’s deeply personal, often playful, and rooted in a diasporic identity that rarely finds space in the mainstream.

Reyan talks about his new single Raathri

“I’m originally from Kerala, but I moved to Ireland when I was around three or four,” Reyan shares. “There’s a strong Malayali community here, and we grew up with both cultures very much alive in us.” His earliest collaborator was a childhood friend, Melvin, with whom he still makes music today. “We were discovering all this music, Tamil-English, Hindi-English, Punjabi-Western fusion. But we noticed nobody was really doing that with Malayalam. So we just thought, why not?”

Their first track was intended as a one-off experiment. “We just made a song and put it out. We didn’t think much of it, but it picked up in the UK and Ireland,” he says. That early success planted the seed for more. A few tracks later came the breakout: Thamburati.

The viral hit, built on Afro rhythms and sharp lyrical switches, changed everything. “I actually wrote Thamburati on a different beat, because I was more into hip-hop at the time,” he says. “But I’d also been really into Afro music. When we found the right beat, it just clicked.” Reyan and Melvin released the song fully independently, not expecting much. “We just wanted to make something lit that was half-English, half-Malayalam. But it really connected. That felt amazing.”

The follow-up, Thakthom, added a surreal new chapter to Reyan’s journey. “I wrote it a few months after Thamburatti, and I remember joking to Melvin, ‘Imagine getting Jazzy Gibbs on this!’ Because he’s such an icon for us.” What started as a pipe dream became real after a chance connection. “Jazzy came to Ireland for a show, we met him, and he liked the song.” Reyan ended up writing a verse for the singer, laced with clever references to his most iconic hits. “He loved it, and it was a dream come true to work with him. He’s such a cool guy.”

As an immigrant, Reyan has also had to wrestle with the pressure of choosing the ‘practical’ path. “Especially with immigrant parents, there's always this thing of, why are you wasting time and money on music? Like, we moved abroad to give you a stable future.” He gets it, but he didn’t let it stop him. “I finished my university and did a master’s. Eventually, people stopped questioning it.” That background has given him a unique lens. “In the future, I’d love to do something for the culture,” he says. “Maybe build a platform for younger kids who are abroad and want to do something creative. Even if it’s not music. Just... something that gives them a chance.”

When asked about his creative process, Reyan shrugs off the idea of a fixed method. “Sometimes I’ll have a hook in mind, or I’ll be scrolling through beats. Sometimes it starts with a line or a freestyle. It just depends.” 

When asked what emotion is hardest to capture, he pauses. “That’s a bit of a tough question… maybe fear,” he says thoughtfully. “There’s obviously heartbreak, jealousy—I can convey that. But fear? I don’t know how I would write that into my music.” He adds, “I think my music is generally more on the positive side.”

His new single, titled Raatri, is a moody slow-burn disguised as a club-ready anthem. “It’s that meme,” Reyan says, laughing. “Sad lyrics, happy beat.” A contrast, happy beat, sad story, is front and centre in his new single. “It’s actually based on a friend’s real-life situation,” Reyan laughs. “He was in love with this girl who was in a relationship. He kept it friendly, but you could tell there were feelings.” Reyan turned that tension into a warm, dancey song, with a sharp undercurrent. Reyan says. The original draft even included the girl’s name, “but yeah, we had to take that out,” he adds, grinning “The lyrics are a little sad. It’s about a guy telling a girl,’ Just for tonight, stay with me.’ But the beat? It’s reggaeton meets afro. A total vibe.”

Adding to the emotional complexity of the track is a guest feature by Chennai-based singer Sarah Black. “We’d been following each other online, and I really wanted a female perspective on the song,” Reyan says. “She just understood the mood completely, and her vocals are incredible.”

When asked who his dream collaborator is, he doesn’t hesitate. “If I were to put it down, I’d say Drake and Rauw Alejandro, probably.” It’s a curveball answer from someone rooted in South Asian melodies and diasporic lyricism, but it makes sense.

While he’s not revealing too much, Reyan confirms that more tracks are on the way. “We’ve got two or three bangers in the locker,” he grins. He also hints at a potential collaboration with South Indian rapper TirumaLi. “We’re close. It would be sick to do a track together. I grew up listening to him.”

As the interview winds down, Reyan has a message for anyone hesitating to chase a creative dream: “When you do something different, you’ll always get hate. But if you’re doing it for your own satisfaction, it won’t bother you. If I’d listened to people at the start, I wouldn’t be here.”

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