Malayali rapper Nomadic Voice on his track ‘Kali Mari’ featured in ‘Dabba Cartel’ and more

Malayali rapper Nomadic Voice discusses his music journey of over a decade and the thrill of working in Dabba Cartel

“I am currently listening to ‘Neelavana cholayil’,” says Malayali rapper Nomadic Voice as he sat down for a Zoom call with The Hindu after his night shift duties as a mental health nurse in Ireland. Almost in a reflex, he hums the first two words of the melody from the 1982 Kamal Haasan-Sridevi starrer Premabhishekam sung by KJ Yesudas.

Shedding the garbs of a rapper, whose real name is Sarath Sasidharan, he jokes, “I write what I write because I could never do what they do .” Nevertheless, his trippy track ‘Kali Mari’, a collaboration with Ireland-based Malayali musician Melvin, produced by ThudWiser, featured in the recent Netflix original series Dabba Cartel, has the audience hooked. 

Even though the song was released in 2020, it was only last year that it caught the attention of Shibani Akhtar, one of the creators of the series, who reached out to the artiste. “The only thing we knew about the project was the cast. When I heard that Shabana Azmi was part of the show, I had to say yes to it, especially with my father being a big fan of hers,” says Nomadic, who also crooned ‘Vaazha Anthem’ from the 2024 Malayalam blockbuster Vaazha : Biopic of a Billion Boys.

Originally from Malayinkeezhu in Thiruvananthapuram, Nomadic debuted in 2012 with ‘Kelkkamo’, which offers a social commentary. One of his most viral songs is ‘Kottu paattu’ (2020), which garnered over 30 million views on YouTube. While one of his tracks ‘Chankaran’ (2019) advocates individualism and letting people be themselves, ‘Entha ittirikunne’ (2020) discusses harassment faced by women.

“I never used to write intending to make a track. Initially, it was just about me getting scolded by my parents or something that happened in school and so on,” says Nomadic. It was his classmate and friend, Aditya Ramesh, who suggested he take the music route during their school days. “Back then, it was just us singing Linkin Park (rock band) songs, playing on the wooden desk. Soon I realised I couldn’t sing; so I started to write.” 

The rapper grew up in a household surrounded by tape recorders and cassettes, with his father recording songs from the radio irrespective of the genre. “I listened to all genres of music, from ghazals to old hip-hop, RnB, rock and so on. Sometimes, they would ask me ‘what music are you even listening to?’ when I play songs at home,” says Nomadic, who made has 24 tracks since he began his journey. “However, now they are happy that I have sung in a movie.”

He points out that movies still act as a launchpad for artistes like him. “It makes a big difference when your song appears on the big screen with visuals of familiar stars. Movies introduce us to the masses,” he comments.