Karshni Tackles Sexual Coercion Head On With 'Malapropism'

Karshni has been unveiling her upcoming album 'Buck Wild' piece by piece, starting with the abstract sonic collage of 'Gaping Hole' and now returning to lyric-led offerings with 'Malapropism'.

From Disco Puppet's contribution as a co-producer to the discomforting black-and-white music video depicting Karshni suspended and contorted using Shibari techniques, the new track has enough to write home about. However, what makes the listener do a double-take is how the Mumbai-based singer-songwriter (and now producer) slips into a refrain of "'Was that rapey?' // Rapey? // Rapey // I don't know, but if you have to ask // It really must be."

The song doesn't hide behind metaphors, but highlights casualised sexual harm, grey-area violence, culprits outsourcing moral judgement and dissociation as survival with a boldness and directness that remains rare. The merit of the song is not in its aim but in how it manages to reach it. It doesn't strike as preaching but rather offering a view from a personal lens that feels all too real, in both its gravity and absurdity, with lines like: "1700, the hospital fee, // My friend, she gets it for me // And we listen to ‘Romance’".

After the song had already managed to present many layers of the experience concisely over a gentle melody, the track risks overplaying its hand with the leftfield production kicking in for the final quarter as the lowered voice of Karshni rolls onto a fast-paced punk-adjacent backbeat to recite not of the situation but of taking control back from it.

Check out the music video for 'Malapropism' below and follow Karshni for more information.