West Meets East

Indian-American rapper and singer Raja Kumari's new album shows signs of her sonic and personal evolution

- Amit Gurbaxani

Indian-American rapper and singer Raja Kumari's new album, The Bridge, heralds the next stage of her sonic evolution. Compared to her previous work, there's a more introspective aspect to the lyrics, while musically, it's more pop and R&B-flavoured than her most well-known hip-hop hits.

She chose to title the collection The Bridge because "not only is it bridging the West back to the East, it's also the bridge from who I was to where I am now," says Kumari over a Zoom call from her home in Los Angeles. "At the beginning of the album, there's a lot more rap, it's a little heavier, and then it just transforms to....a softer space." Like many performing artists, Kumari-whose real name is Svetha Rao and who was born and raised in the US-re-evaluated her career during the pandemic. She spent the first few months in isolation in her apartment in LA and was "forced to deal with myself and all of my idiosyncrasies". This led her to realise that she was projecting a certain persona. "As someone who studies spirituality and Hindu mythology, I have this obsession with Ardhanarishvara, this balance between masculine and feminine energy," says Kumari. "I understood that I was [tapping into] my masculine [side]." The approach worked in her favour while navigating the male-dominated music industry, which is even more patriarchal in India than in the West. "I had to be so aggressive to cut through, but it was overloading my spirit.