Apna time aa gaya

PAV4N (left), Sonnyjim (middle) and Kartik. Pic/Meghan Katti

We were really digging deep with the cultural and cross-cultural references, spanning all the way back to the Partition and beyond," says PAV4N from Pataka Boys. No wonder their debut album, Thugs From Amritsar, traverses from Black Sabbath to Bappi Lahiri and bridges the cross-cultural, cross-continental and cross-generational with easy finesse. Comprising cult-figures of the UK underground rap arena, PAV4N and Sonnyjim, and elevated by Ludhiana-based Kartik Sudhera's production, Pataka Boys canvasses a fresh sound that marries bilingual lyricism, iconic references to Indian cinema, soul samples, Punjabi folk records and nods to hip-hop classics with the artists' own diasporic experiences.

PAV4N, frontman and founding member of London rap group Foreign Beggars, has worked with producers like Steve Aoki and Skrillex, while Sonnyjim's career has seen collaborations with artists like MF DOOM, Westside Gunn, and Lord Apex. Kartik is an up-and-coming name in the industry, with Pataka Boys' debut being his first complete project. Reportedly, he produced the entire album on a broken laptop, shuttling between hospital waiting rooms and his parents' home. In conversation with PAV4N, we get closer to the album's marrow. "The creative process was very much spending time together and joking around, but also the journey of learning about the nuances of each other's heritage and life stories as underground rappers for more than two decades in the UK," he says.

Album art for Thugs From Amristar

Thugs From Amritsar was released on Azadi Records on July 12, and features the likes of New Delhi-based hip-hop duo Seedhe Maut, British-Bengali rapper M.O.N.G.O, Queens rapper Heems and British-Punjabi folk artist Juss Nandhra, among others. The album is an exploration of belonging and cultural heritage, and a challenge to the over-done, uni-dimensional and sometimes taken-for-granted syntax surrounding the Indian diaspora and questions of the homeland. It's celebratory and sharp. "There are not many people from our background who have been on this trajectory for so long, which is why we chose to work with all the people on the album that we did.
Essentially, heads who have been about the music and representing without overdoing it, but quietly raising the bar as it should be," PAV4N explains. The Pataka Boys' discography is cleverly punctuated with desi-specific subtext, which he says was intentionally played around with for their listeners to connect to, in a "context that hasn't really elevated them before." "Bud Bud Ding Ding" on the album, for example, is a reclamation of the British slur for South Asians, and ‘Glassy Junction' opens with an excerpt from a xenophobic, racist speech - terming Asians the "coolies of the Empire" - to call for a remembrance of the distressing conditions of post-war emigration to the UK.

"I think more than representation, it's providing something for our people who have always had to look outside for role models, but presented in reference to where we're really from. We have already been through this entire journey as UK emcees so now we're really just taking it another level deeper," PAV4N says. This is but the beginning for Pataka Boys and everything it promises. "We already have the second album in the works and other interesting collabs in the pipeline," he shares, "we just want to represent this corner of hip-hop music and culture along with our other projects. This is the start of something really special."