History by Lapgan

Western education is often a sanitized account of colonialism that erases (or at least disregards) the rich histories of oppressed countries and people. Chicago-based producer/beatmaker Lapgan has spent his burgeoning career musically rectifying this wrong for South Asians everywhere. On his most recent critically-acclaimed project, the Bandcamp-approved Duniya Kya Hai, Lapgan unearthed rare and forgotten Indian and Pakistani music, revitalizing and recontextualizing the sounds of his ancestral home and musical predecessors with knocking and layered beats that traverse the Indian subcontinent.

The record is an imagined history and a musical thesis - a refutation of British colonialism through a tapestry of beats stitching together samples of Bollywood and Lollywood soundtracks, Tamil Film music, Marathi chants, flute-heavy Bengali religious music, and more. These are beats for fans of deep crate digging, meticulous arrangement, and drums that could inspire scholars railing against Churchill. For this project Lapgan linked with Nishant Mittal, @digginginindia, a Delhi-based music archivist and DJ whose crates are stacked with rare vinyl from across South Asia.

The album arrives on Veena Sounds, the new record label from Himanshu “Heems” Suri, best known for Das Racist and Swet Shop Boys with Riz Ahmed. Suri’s music projects also touch upon elements of South Asian arts and culture. Lapgan has also produced for Heems’ upcoming album, Veena.

History’s opener “Ek, Do, Teen” captures the thumping frenzy in Lapgan’s mind and body, a brilliant fusion of dusty sonic fragments that stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Madlib’s Beat Konducta in India, Bombay The Hard Way: Guns, Cars, and Sitars from Dan the Automator and Anandji-Kalyanji, and Heems’ Nehru Jackets. On “Mughal Shit”, he is the tour guide of an ancient and regal journey, creating a hip-hop historical epic. Though the album houses disparate tracks like the Indian Noir “Stolen Heirlooms & The Queen’s Debts” and the energetic, ’80s-leaning “Intermission Dance”, Lapgan never loses the listener. With “Oh, Pyar,” Lapgan’s soft drums and winding melody bring the listener to a meditative place, asking them to reflect on India’s past before they press rewind to relive the future of beat music.

On the album cover, he pays tribute to his familial history, including a superimposed photo of his grandfather over a collage of Lapgan’s favorite Delhi historical sites. An archivist and an artist, Lapgan uses History to document otherwise forgotten Indian music, allowing every chant and strum of the sarod to flow through him.

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