“A bigger part of being an artist is to be able to change things for the better”

Known as Shaastriji, he is one-third of teesri duniya along with Raghav and Karun, who came together in 2018 to start redefining Hindi music.

He started producing music in the ninth grade with Hindi music but later took inspiration from Kanye West to write his own lyrics.

His lyrics tackle a range of topics including existentialism - “But in an entertaining way”. He began writing his first few songs when the north Indian hip-hop scene was still building itself. To him in his early days, rappers such as raga, pradhan and seedhe maut were a huge source of inspiration.

His masterpiece - Yati - is an 8-song album that he released in collaboration with several artists, and was in the works for a year. While working on the album on and off - he did not necessarily have a concrete idea in place while creating it. The music took the form that it wanted to under his purview.

Yati is an album he wrote for “mental purposes” and he wants to experiment with the sounds that feature in the album. Although he feels like he rushed the album, the album itself is a musical paragon.

Having had no professional training in music theory, shaastriji learned everything by listening to various kinds of music.

He is a living example of the saying - you cannot make a fish climb a tree and expect them to excel. Having gotten only a 0.77 GPA in his first semester at college - he is now a producer-singer and rapper in the Independent Indian music industry.

He threads divinity into his pieces and believes that god is anything that humans create in the form of art, he describes it as seen in the screenshot below 👇

Although a large part of his music lies in the hip-hop genre, there are many influences from Bollywood and a range of instruments featuring in his songs including a sitar in “Vaayu Mein”

and a trumpet in “Aflatune”

A deep dive into his thoughts and process can be found on a Reddit thread where he answered questions from his fans - linked on the screenshots below -

Not just a rapper, we think he is witty and sincere as well 😅

Teesri duniya plans to release hard copies of their music in the form of cassettes and vinyl this year. Although they say it will be expensive - good art is worth the hole it makes in your pocket 😤