TALHA ANJUM TALKS 'MY TERRIBLE MIND,' ACTING AND FANS IN INDIA

Hip-hop star and Young Stunners founder talks about working with Mass Appeal and turning actor for the underdog short film Kattar Karachi'

- ANURAG TAGAT

Karachi hip-hop star Talha Anjum and producer Umair are at their prolific best on their recent double album My Terrible Mind, released via Mass Appeal earlier this month.

Across 16 songs and nearly an hour's worth of material, Anjum shows us exactly why he's counted as the best in desi hip-hop - he delivers relentless, finessed bars on songs like "Good Fellas" and regards himself as "somewhat of a lyrical genius" on "Back For More" (which also shouts out to late Punjabi star Sidhu Moose Wala) and keeps it unapologetically gangster on tracks like "30 Shooter."

Then, on disc 2, there's heartfelt, emotional and pop-leaning hip-hop with songs like "Heartbreak Kid" and love songs like "Departure Lane." It's not so much that My Terrible Mind simply represents two different sides of Anjum but how he's able to balance himself artistically between accessible bops and more hard-hitting, lethal lyrics for his fans from more than a decade ago. He says over a call, "I discovered my actor side on this album. Apart from that, I already knew about these two sides [presented on the album]. I think they call it 'pookie' these days. So I have this shady side, and I have this pookie side."

Earlier on in our chat, he said more seriously, "The first part of My Terrible Mind is something I think fans were longing for, because I was doing too much of [2020 Young Stunners song] 'Gumaan' and [2021 Young Stunners song] 'Afsanay' type music."