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“They’re two boys just trying to be

themselves when other aspiring rappers here

are trying so hard to be ‘rappers’, if you know

what I mean,” says Azadi co-founder Mo Joshi,

on the phone from Chandigarh. “I think that’s

why they have such an incredible connection

with their fans.”

B

ro, supplee lag gayi (Bro, I have

to give a supplementary exam),”

complains Negi, looking up from

a textbook as I walk into the

bedroom of Sharma’s Tilak Nagar

bachelor pad a couple of weeks

earlier. A huge Seedhe Maut

poster takes up most of the wall behind him,

while Manchester United merch and a couple

of framed CD covers – Bayaan and their debut

mixtape 2 Ka Pahada – make up the rest

of the decor. One corner, with a desk and a

computer, is the duo’s combined home studio

and gaming den. In between our interview and

a recording session for a track on label mate

Tienas’ upcoming album, Negi is trying to

cram subjects like advanced mathematics and

coastal engineering so he can finally get his

civic engineering degree, six years in. Sharma,

on the other hand, is taking much pleasure in

his friend’s misfortune. “He’s going to put this

in the article,” he cackles. “There goes your

street cred.”

More than anything, Seedhe Maut are like

an odd couple from a sitcom. The older, quieter

Negi is an introvert whose idea of a good time

is just chilling at home with a spliff. He doesn’t

drink much, and used to hate nightclubs before

he met Sharma. With his gaunt face and

kohl-tinged eyes, he radiates a quiet, brooding

intensity. In contrast, Sharma is an ebullient

extrovert who starts every other sentence with

Delhi’s signature elongated “Brooooo”. Sharma

goes through life with a joie de vivre that’s

infectious, greeting every new development

with multiple-exclamation-marks excitement.

Never seen without his oversized square specs,

he’s the life of every after-party. “It works out

great, because Calm can go out and mingle

with people easily, do the networking,” says

Negi. “That really helped us get gigs and stuff,

especially in the early days.”

They’ll often complete each other’s

sentences. During interviews, you sometimes

feel like a third wheel – they can keep a

conversation going for hours with little more

than a few encouraging nods from your end,

jumping from tangent to tangent. They don’t

deploy the filters usually used by artists when

speaking to the press, either. A question about

their latest live show can lead to anything from

anecdotes about meeting Ranveer Singh at the

GQ Style & Culture Awards in March this

year (“He had a speaker playing “Apna Time

Producer
Sez On The Beat

Part of the buzz around them is thanks to

their explosive live shows. At Azadi Records’

second-anniversary celebration at Mumbai’s

Khar Social earlier this year, the opening bars

of Seedhe Maut’s first track hit the crowd

like a tsunami, igniting a mosh pit that sent

bodies flying across the floor like billiard

balls. But this is just one piece of the puzzle.

In fact, Seedhe Maut’s secret sauce is their

unique dynamic: Two young friends finding

their way in a world gone awry. On Bayaan,

their critically acclaimed nine-track debut

album, Sharma and Negi channel the angst

and frustration of middle India’s Gen Z as they

confront an adulthood more complicated than

they expected.

This generation has inherited a country

that is no longer the India from their civics

textbooks. Today’s young adults are navigating

new rules of romance in the age of sexting and

#MeToo, trying to unlearn toxic masculinity

without the help of a gender studies education.

They’re faced with the task of handling an

impending environmental crisis that their

“elders” seem to have no interest in fixing.

All that, on top of the familiar conundrum of

middle-class kids everywhere – whether to

follow the safe, scripted path through life that

their parents have planned for them, or to

risk conflict and failure by setting off on their

own. Seedhe Maut’s music and lyrics speak to

these anxieties in a way neither mainstream

mass culture nor gully rap do. Perhaps that

explains their incredibly dedicated fanbase:

14-year-old boys who send them beats and

religiously follow their videogame live streams

on YouTube; teenage girls at gigs who cry

when they play romantic ballad “Gehraiyaan”

and wait hours at the gate to meet them, only

to cry again. There are even a couple of guys

who religiously follow them on tour, regularly

popping up in the duo’s Instagram Stories from

shows all over the country.