'Lime Tikka': Baalti & Lapgan Announce Collaborative Album With A Music Video By EXCISE DEPT

Chicago-based beatmaker Lapgan and San Francisco duo Baalti, both South Asia-rooted artists recognised for flipping material from India and Pakistan, have collaborated together to create the album 'Threads', which releases on April 3. They begin the roll-out with the single 'Lime Tikka', which just arrived along with a music video directed by Indian hip-hop group EXCISE DEPT.

Created in a consolidated music creation period early last year and then tested on stages like Glastonbury and Paris Fashion Week, the single begins as an assembly of percussive layers and a playful bassline leading the charge and tastefully holding it back. The held melodies of nadhaswaram (an Indian reed instrument) slowly takes over for the breakdown and return – offering influences from the duo's heritage while still keeping the overall track rooted in the club.

The music video directed by EXCISE DEPT doesn't arrive just as a supportive addition to the release, like music videos tend to be, but like its own short film joining hands with the single.

"In July 1979, reports began circulating that ‘Skylab’, America’s first space station and one of the world’s most successful orbital platforms, would crash land on Earth. In Karimnagar, Telangana, panic was spreading–– as many believed that their town lay directly within the shuttle’s trajectory," explains the hip-hop group who used this tale as an inspiration to imagine an expecting mother finding courage on the day and marking it by naming her daughter "Satellite". The music video imagines a coming-of-age story where that girl learns the story behind her name and goes on to build her own home-made spaceship. It is a story of ambition found in nooks and villages of South Asia finding the brilliance to stand at par with any global efforts – much like the sound of the single itself.

Check out the music video for 'Lime Tikka' below and follow Baalti, Lapgan and EXCISE DEPT for more information.