On a ‘chill’ pill 

BENGALURU:  How often have you wanted to play hooky from work just to catch some shuteye or read a book instead of endless emails? Kannada rapper Karthik Gubbi, better known as Gubbi, captures this very emotion in his new track, aptly named Chill. The video features Gubbi but the storyline may as well relate to any professional who craves a day’s break from the usual rat race. After all, it was made by someone who is all too familiar with the 9-to-5 life.

“The song is inspired by my experiences with the corporate life. So many people have passions they want to pursue but sometimes, we need to take a much-needed break from the monotony to be able to do that,” says the city-based musician, who quit his part time job to pursue music full time last year. “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but one of the best ones I took.

Being an artiste is no easy job either but it has given me peace of mind and better health, and gave me the chance to be involved with spirituality,” says the 31-year-old. The song is one among the five new tracks from Gubbi’s new EP, called The Calm. Once the entire EP is out next year, it will be followed by another one with six different tracks, which will be called – no surprises here – The Storm.

The lockdown gave musicians the chance to experiment like never before, which is what this rapper did too. “I’ve mostly sung rap songs but in The Calm EP, I have more melodies and repeating lines. Like Chill, the other tracks too fall under the lo-fi or chill hip-hop genre,” explains Gubbi. The Storm, on the other hand, had him experimenting with fast rap and will have more aggressive and high energy tracks instead. 

Like Chill, all the new tracks from both his upcoming EPs will also be bilingual, including a mix of English and Kannada. Interestingly enough, the list of languages Gubbi can rap in doesn’t end there. Before pursuing music, he had planned to pursue a masters abroad. This plan may have been shelved but not before Gubbi mastered German, so much so that he can now dabble with rapping in this language as well. “Who knows, I might even consider working on a Kannada and German rap song soon,” he says.