BRIDGING CULTURES THROUGH MUSIC: AN INTERVIEW WITH BRITISH GRIME PIONEER NIKA D ON HIS ‘TRADING ROOTS’ PROJECT

By Rishma • On Interviews

In our latest inter­view, we sit down with Brit­ish grime pion­eer Nika D to dis­cuss his ground­break­ing pro­ject, ‘Trad­ing Roots,’ under his own label, Bad Med­ic Records. As part of this ini­ti­at­ive, Nika D has teamed up with Indi­an rap star Ikka to release their dynam­ic single, ‘Bom­bay Moves.’ This track, which launched on July 12, is a com­pel­ling blend of UK grime, drill, and clas­sic­al Indi­an instru­ment­a­tion, enriched with bilin­gual lyr­ics. Inspired by Nika D’s per­son­al jour­ney to explore his Indi­an her­it­age, ‘Bom­bay Moves’ aims to bridge the music scenes of the UK and India, cre­at­ing a rich, cul­tur­al tapestry that cel­eb­rates and recon­nects the his­tor­ic­al ties between the two coun­tries. In this inter­view, Nika D delves into the inspir­a­tion behind the track, the col­lab­or­at­ive pro­cess with Ikka, and the pro­found impact this pro­ject has had on his music and per­son­al iden­tity. Join us as we explore the chal­lenges and tri­umphs of mer­ging dis­tinct cul­tur­al ele­ments through music and the broad­er nar­rat­ive of the ‘Trad­ing Roots’ campaign.

Nika D, can you tell us about the inspir­a­tion behind ‘Bom­bay Moves’ and how this track came to be?

Bom­bay Moves is the second single from my forth­com­ing Trad­ing Roots pro­ject, which is a mul­ti­me­dia EP and doc­u­ment­ary film about redis­cov­er­ing parts of my her­it­age through music, released on my own label Bad Med­ic Records. With this one our main object­ive was to raise the level in all aspects — from the music itself, to the cre­at­ive con­cepts and music video.

‘Bom­bay Moves’ blends UK grime and drill with clas­sic­al Indi­an instru­ment­a­tion. How did you approach mer­ging these dis­tinct music­al styles?

I’ve always found that clas­sic­al Indi­an sounds blend so well and effort­lessly with Grime, Drill and gen­er­ally across the board in hip hop and its sub­genres. Over the years there have been many examples of how the fusions of the sounds have turned into hit records. With Bom­bay Moves we wanted to make the fusion really authen­t­ic to both sides of the spec­trum and I feel this track really does that.

You men­tioned that choos­ing an Indi­an rap­per who could hold his own was cru­cial. What was it like col­lab­or­at­ing with Ikka on this track?

It was really easy work­ing with Ikka, he and his team were totally on board with the concept of the pro­ject from the very start which really helped make the pro­cess simple. Ikka is one of the most ver­sat­ile artists I’ve worked with and he really delivered on this track. His verse is sick!

The ‘Trad­ing Roots’ pro­ject delves into your Indi­an her­it­age. How has this jour­ney influ­enced your music and per­son­al identity? 

I decided to do this pro­ject after my Dad passed away in 2022. The first trip back to India without my Dad was very dif­fi­cult as it brought the real­ity of it all home. But being there to start work­ing on this pro­ject gave me a new motiv­a­tion and fresh inspir­a­tion. Being mixed race, per­son­al iden­tity has always been a chal­lenge to pin down espe­cially as a kid but this pro­ject has really helped me on that journey.

The music video for ‘Bom­bay Moves’ is visu­ally stun­ning and cap­tures the essence of Mum­bai. Can you share some mem­or­able moments from the shoot?

We shot the video in an old aban­doned man­sion on the very out­skirts of Mum­bai. We had to arrive on set at 5am with an 18 hour planned shoot ahead of us. One of the most mem­or­able moments was when I had to ride on the back of a motor­bike and throw a play­ing card dir­ectly at the cam­era lens while the driver was rid­ing in circles. It took a good few takes as you can ima­gine! The whole shoot was really hard work but really fun, there was a huge crew of around a hun­dred people who all worked really hard to bring the vis­ion to life and I think the end res­ult really shows that.

How does ‘Bom­bay Moves’ fit into the lar­ger nar­rat­ive of the ‘Trad­ing Roots’ cam­paign, and what mes­sage do you hope to con­vey with this project?

Iden­tity crisis is very com­mon amongst people of mixed race/ her­it­age and first gen­er­a­tion Brits whose par­ent or par­ents have moved to the UK. Very often these people like myself will grow up with two dif­fer­ent cul­tures blen­ded togeth­er in their houses. There are loads of great things about this but one of the down sides is that we often grow up feel­ing very dif­fer­ent to people around us.

Music has been one con­sist­ent thing in my life and work­ing on the Trad­ing Roots pro­ject has really helped with my per­son­al iden­tity. By fus­ing these two huge Influ­ences in my life: UK Grime / Drill and Indi­an cul­ture and music — it has helped me to under­stand that there are so many sim­il­ar­it­ies. Music has really helped bridge whatever gaps I felt exis­ted before.

I’m really hop­ing that the pro­ject con­veys this and that both the EP and the doc­u­ment­ary really cap­ture this essence and help oth­er people of mixed race/heritage to under­stand that they are not alone in how they feel and that we all have a place we can feel we belong.

Your career with Vir­us Syn­dic­ate has been highly suc­cess­ful. How does your solo work, par­tic­u­larly with ‘Trad­ing Roots,’ dif­fer from your pre­vi­ous projects?

I think the main dif­fer­ence is the approach to mak­ing the music. Vir­us Syn­dic­ate is well known for its sound and energy and there are of course two of us in the group who both equally con­trib­ute to the tracks. With my solo pro­jects there is just me and my ideas to lead each track and even when I’m col­lab­or­at­ing I will still be very involved in the dir­ec­tion of what the col­lab­or­at­or is bring­ing to the tune. The Nika D pro­ject is still quite new so I don’t feel the pres­sure of hav­ing to fit with­in any par­tic­u­lar genre or sound — although organ­ic­ally the sound is nat­ur­ally not a mil­lion miles away from what my VS fans have come to love but still indi­vidu­al enough to feel and sound quite different.

What chal­lenges did you face while blend­ing the cul­tur­al ele­ments of the UK and India in ‘Bom­bay Moves,’ and how did you over­come them?

There have been a load of chal­lenges with put­ting this pro­ject togeth­er, mainly around logist­ics. The way the music busi­ness works in the UK is quite dif­fer­ent to how it works over in India. These dif­fer­ent approaches to get­ting pro­jects done made some things a little bit dif­fi­cult but we the team always found a way to make it happen.

You’ve men­tioned that ‘Trad­ing Roots’ is sym­bol­ic of the his­tory and colo­ni­al­ism between the UK and India. How do you see music as a medi­um for address­ing and recon­nect­ing these com­plex histories?

I think music has the unique power to bridge people togeth­er in a pos­it­ive way. What we are doing with Trad­ing Roots is feed­ing back pos­it­ively into the long his­tory between the UK and India. In pre­vi­ous years The Brit­ish Empire had extor­ted and expor­ted nat­ur­al resources and people across their many “Trad­ing Routes” all over the world. Trad­ing Roots is almost a way of reclaim­ing the his­tory that exis­ted between us into a pos­it­ive feed­back loop through music while also pay­ing respect to my heritage.

Look­ing ahead, what can fans expect from you and Bad Med­ic Records in terms of new releases and future col­lab­or­a­tions with­in the ‘Trad­ing Roots’ campaign?

Bad Med­ic Records is just over a year old now and the label has come so far in such a short peri­od of time. We have some really big releases forth­com­ing on the label at the end of the sum­mer and through­out the autumn and winter which we are really excited about.

In terms of Trad­ing Roots, we’re head­ing back out to India in Octo­ber to final­ise the next single and fin­ish film­ing the doc­u­ment­ary. The next set of col­labs are really gonna take this pro­ject to the next level. Watch this space!

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.