Hello everyone. Today I'd like to introduce you to Varys Deus and Brook Boy, who are rappers from Bangalore. Varys DS is an underground hip hop act and began making music in the year 2014. His single Aza B has been on streaming platforms since early last year. Brooke Boy is a music producer and rapper of course, based out of Bangalore and his collaboration with Various putting him well on his journey to the mainstream
Dead South
@DeadSouth · 1:24
Well, I mean, before we go on to the rest of the interview, I'm going to assume you need a little bit of information about Dead South. We can just jump into this, can we? So Dead South is a Bangalore based hip hop duo with a crew based out of Commonal here in Bangalore. We're heavily influenced by Memphis hip hop from the 90s and the Chopped and Screwed style, as well as the current South Florida underground
Welcome here is great to have you here. I hope Brooke Boy can join us soon. So let's jump right into the questions. My first question to you would be how did you begin your musical journey? Now, of course, you said that you work with with a lot of bands before, and so did Brook Boy. But how did you pursue this solo career that you both are in today
Dead South
@DeadSouth · 2:33
And I guess that's one of the main reasons that I even considered a solo career in music, especially in this country. I started off playing the drums at the age of six and I eventually moved on to the bass guitar in the 8th grade when I realized I enjoyed scales and chord progressions better than rhythm and lead after they started playing bass guitar. The thing about the music scene in Bangalore is that it's notoriously hard to break into if you're an independent musician
It seems like both of your lives have been constructed and have led you to this moment of making and creating music, which is amazing. And I'm sure your new single is going to be fantastic. And I know for one, I'm going to enjoy it thoroughly. My next question to you is what are some of the challenges that you face trying to have a music career in India? I mean, you did mention it before, so let's just expand on that
Dead South
@DeadSouth · 3:49
We aren't looking to the music we make as our source of income because frankly, that would be a little dumb, which is why we're both working on College degrees as well. Another huge challenge that artists itself face here is how labels treat them. The thing about independent music labels in India is that for some reason they treat artists a lot worse than most large labels do
We're which is, how does the world around you politically, socially, culturally influence your music? Do you seek inspiration with it? Do you address it? How do you go about dealing with that
Dead South
@DeadSouth · 2:34
A lot of the times when we've shown our friends music or unreleased stuff to other artists, the first question people ask us is, hey, do you worship Satan? And back then at least I'd say, no, we don't worship Satan. We're agnostic. There's no concept of good and evil here with us, there's just different degrees of bad
That's really interesting. It's almost like you're encapsulating life in your music. Right. And I like what you said, that it makes everybody feel like their darkness is shared. Now coming to my next question, where do you see where do you see your music in the future? Where do you and rookie want to take that South
Dead South
@DeadSouth · 1:21
So by keeping these three things in the back of our mind, we don't really need to completely know where we're going in the next four or five years. We just know we're ready to go whether level. And I guess that's what helps us keep going and creating content as well
You almost had me there for a second, but I'm glad that you guys have a vision for your future that's not dependent on time. I know that that's what exhausts a lot of artists, no matter what field they're in. But it's really interesting that you've decided to be adaptable. You've decided to have just a vision, just what it should look like and not when it should happen
Dead South
@DeadSouth · 1:48
Everyone's going to remember the music that remains, and that music needs to stand the test of time. And if it's going to stand the test of time, you need to be as proud of it in ten years as you were the day you made it. Secondly, this is something I wish someone had told me when I was just starting out as an artist. But I guess now that I am in a position to tell someone, I'm going to do exactly that
Thank you Vidas Dais for joining us today. I'm really sorry that Broke boy couldn't join us, but we had a great conversation. I learned a lot from it. Thank you for your time once again and I'm really excited and best of luck for your new single is coming out sooner
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Dead South
@DeadSouth · 0:14
Thank you for having me. This was a great conversation. I'm sorry, Burke. Burke couldn't be here either, but I'm sure he was with us here in spirit or listening on his device or one of the two, whichever comes first. It was a wonderful conversation. Thank you for having us