Review: Raj Aims to Extend His Musicality Beyond Passive Enjoyment On 'Culture & Opinions'

After nearly 4 years of regularly offering well-received releases, Rajkanwar Sodhi aka Raj is not a novice at conjuring emotive soundscapes that easily fit into the lo-fi hip-hop playlists and streams that sizeable audiences tune into for passive listening and sometimes more. For his debut album 'Culture & Opinions', the New Delhi artist attempts to make a more assertive and further-reaching mark as a musician, venturing beyond the limits and cliches of the genre with the help of an array of collaborators.

The collaborations, when contrasting, offer the most dynamic work on the 10-track album. While we have already talked about the lead single 'Time Is Money' before, which has the album's tightest songwriting, 'Call Jesus' and 'Mody On Fire' emerge as other similar instances.

The former features producer-multi-instrumentalist (also part of Peter Cat Recording Co.) Fursat FM and voice artist Tribemama Marykali, whose performance style is presented in an entirely new contrast on the track. While Raj has previously worked with the singer on her music, this time the pair is more in Raj's stylistic realms which demand a restraint on the melodic runs – allowing for a more direct simple and intimate emotional communication in its musicality that is heightened by Fursat FM's ambient work.

Similarly, drummer Dhir Mody's presence on the closer 'Mody On Fire' forces both musicians to find a middle ground to their styles which they might not otherwise venture to. Raj is at his zaniest with the loose rhythms of his swirling chords creating a psychedelic effect on top of the more defined grooves of Dhir Mody's drumming, which takes the central role usually given to riffs and melodies. It's nicely led into by another of Raj's grittiest offerings to date with 'Anderson Says Hi', a solo venture that samples vocal bites of Anderson .Paak.

On the other end of the spectrum where the collaborations create no contrast, like 'Bitch U Leaving' and 'Counting My Blessings', the album falls back on conventions of sombre hip-hop beats and melodic refrains interjecting verses of raps or minimal melodies about self-assuredness or dysfunctional relationships. While neither the songwriting nor the performance on either of the tracks is below par and holds sufficient value for someone who will connect with the lyrics, they do emerge as weaker spots in an LP that's otherwise filled with its artists marginally pushing their creative boundaries.

Even when Raj sticks close to his most familiar palette of guitar riffs and hooks getting chopped up with other samples on tracks like 'Cray' and 'Woke Up', he throws in a very light peppering of some atonal noises to give even his usual a more adventurous flair. The pinnacle of his solo beat-making however is in the retro-esque horn lines, scuttling rhythms and the neo-soul guitar runs of 'Bailed' or the simple by-the-book but highly effective composition of 'Basement Jazz' that turns to creative sampling, putting it through effects and reinforcing it with digestible hooks. Although the latter track along with its follow-ups 'Anderson Says Hi' and 'Mody On Fire' make a case against brevity as it feels that expounding more on the ideas within the compositions would have resulted in a more confident and stronger musical statement. The album itself clocks in under 20 minutes of run time even with 10 tracks.

Image by Uday Rana for Magnetic Fields Festival 2024

Either way, while not without its weak points that limit the album's merit for listeners at large, 'Culture & Opinions' holds sufficient value within the context of Raj's journey and for those who are following it. It succeeds in Raj's attempt to show that his musicality goes beyond a few tried, tested and easily loved tricks of hip-hop and neo-soul beat-making by not just presenting efforts a tiny bit beyond his native genres but also through introducing concepts and themes. The album cover, the music video to 'Time Is Money' and the visuals to his performance of the music at Magnetic Fields Festival 2023 feature a character with a giant eye for a head to symbolise public opinion and scrutiny as the album reflects on dealing with it – the struggles of it, the failures in it and the defiance in face of it. It lends the release a more defined identity which in itself is a self-determined (and once again, successful) rebellion against being penned as just an artist of genres for passive listening without shunning the perfected good elements from those styles.

Words by Amaan Khan

Artwork by Shabad Sarin