Raja Kumari
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A Grammy-nominated Indian-American rapper Raja Kumari’s latest album, Kashi to Kailash, is a sonic pilgrimage through the sacred landscapes of the Indian subcontinent. Connecting the ancient city of Kashi to the mystical heights of Mount Kailash, the album is a result of her journey inwards. 

With five albums to her credit, Raja Kumari will also complete a decade as a recording artiste next year. She took a year off to understand the kind of music she wanted to make and who she wanted to represent herself as. On a spiritual quest to Kedarnath, she felt moved by the term: “surrender”. During Mahakumbh, she flew in her friend Nacho La Raza, the producer on this project. Being Spanish, he did not have much experience with Indian or devotional music, so she wanted him to reimagine it with her. “From the moment I got on the microphone to the release of the album, fully mixed and mastered, it was 28 days, which is insane,” she recalls.

According to Raja Kumari, the five-track album’s goal is to convey that devotional music is still relevant. “People do not have to take a whole different mode to listen to this genre. They should just be able to make it part of their daily life,” she explains.

The title track is the only English song on the album and is written by Raja Kumari herself. She also shares a personal connection with the second track ‘Shivatandav and how it took her a couple of days to record each of its 16 Sanskrit verses.

Raja Kumari is looking forward to collaborating with different artistes in India
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Raja Kumari also created ‘Lingashtakam’ in an Afropop version, and called it ‘I Worship You’. The final song, ‘Shambho’, captures the effect of a satsang and the song goes through three different tempos, and even includes the voice of Raja Kumari’s guru, Sumathi Kaushal.

As part of the album’s launch, Raja Kumari staged a live performance at Lohan Chowk, Hanumandhoka — one of Nepal’s cultural and spiritual landmarks. While previously she performed at Chidambaram temple and on top of a hill in Tirupati, she chose Hanumandhoka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site this time round — paying homage to centuries of cultural heritage.

Recently, Raja Kumari sang a Punjabi love number with Guru Randhawa, and plans to continue making mainstream and Bollywood music, besides collaborating with different artistes.