Abhir Hathi, the Canarian rapper who broke the mold of success: “This is a song business, not likes”

2024-01-24 20:36:50

Abhir Hathi has been moving away from common molds and labels for some time now. And there, in a moment of freedom and change of priorities, the Canarian rapper of Indian descent – who had already shown signs of his talent in ‘Lazos y knots’ (2021) – has created one of the best and most interesting albums of 2023 , ‘Brown boy’, a work forged in a blessed identity crisis that he presents this Thursday at Razzmatazz. “I had a moment of falling out of love, I felt in 2022 that I had nothing in front of me,” says Abhir Hathi, who has lived in Madrid for six years, where at first he combined music with an office job. “Thank God I left it, I didn’t want to do what I was told, I don’t get along well with authority,” he says. And doing what he wanted has had an outstanding result.

The 28-year-old from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria changed the way we see a key concept in all of this: success. Success that is based on numbers, metrics, lists and other things related more to the calculator than to art. Or as he himself defines: “I thought about success in a different way, in how it is conceived for the world, for the market and for the people who begin to do music“. “The biggest learning in recent years is the change in perception of what it is, as a musician and as a person. Now I think it is tranquility, being able to enjoy without having a weight on your back or fog in your head,” he says. “I really like what my manager always says: this is a song business, not likes,” she says. And ‘Brown boy’ is full of songs that you like, which features collaborations like Quevedo, Ébano, Juicy BAE and Cruz Cafuné.

The album by the ‘brown boy’, who has been the right hand in Saint Lowe’s production, is a vindication of his origins, of his way of understanding the business., disengaging from the world of musical trends, since the album has an experimental air that translates all this. “I saw that my childhood has much more to do with my present condition than I thought. And I wanted to separate myself from this hermetic world of urban music and rap, which is very cool because it is advancing in very big steps, but I feel that It limits me a little too,” says Abhir Hathi.

The rapper also mentions the racism he has experienced due to his condition as the son of migrants. And the responsibility with which he lives that: “I don’t want them to feel [sus padres] that the sacrifice they have made I am throwing away by fooling around with a microphone. “The sacrifice they have made for me is much heavier than I can make for anyone.”

In diverse Spain

In ‘Bombay to Las Palmas’ he draws his journey and sticks out his chest saying:“This is how I laugh at people who can only be racist behind an anime photo.” Direct as he is, Abhir Hathi comments that he does not have much hope that Spain will soon be a less racist country. “I don’t think it will change soon, but I’m going to continue keeping my mouth shut. I take it well, but I eat it and turn it into gasoline,” he says.

All this in a Spain that musically is no longer a white country, since there is a generation of artists who, like him, are children of parents from very diverse origins who finally occupy the front line. “For me there is a name that changes everything: MDLR, that is, Morad and Beny Jr. They are a light for people like me who, at times, have questioned why I don’t connect with people because I am brown. And I have “It’s agreed that they are there and it doesn’t have to be that way. Morad and Beny have ‘palos’ that sing in posh neighborhoods of Barcelona and in Castellana. They have been for me what I hope I can be for some kid who is thinking about it,” ditch.