Heems – “Rakhi” (Feat. Pavvan & Ajji)
![](https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2024/08/Heems-Rakhi-1723119266.jpg)
Queens rapper Heems, formerly of Das Racist, returned earlier this year with Lafandar, his first solo album in nine years. Later this month, he’ll follow that one with a new album called Veena LP. We’ve already posted the early tracks “Manto,” with Vijay Iyer, and “Dame.” Today, Heems shares another one.
On the new single “Rakhi,” Heems teams up with fellow Queens artists Pavvan and Ajji. It’s the second time that Heems has worked with Pavvan. On “Choothay Lare,” a song from his 2012 mixtape Nehru Jackets, Heems teamed up with a bunch of high school students from Richmond Hill, Queens, and Pavvan was one of them.
On “Rakhi,” Heems, Pavvan, and Ajji go in over a stuttering beat, the three of them showing hugely different approaches to the track. In a press release, producer Evergreen Univerze says that Heems specifically asked for “a tumbi drill beat.” Heems says:
This is what community work does. They made us a district and gave us a star. My man went from a high school kid around recording equipment for the first time to a successful Punjabi artist representing for New York… This one for me was a bit of A&R work, some cultural engineering. I dealt with a lot of multicultural collaborations in the music business, and now I have an example of how I would do it, centering it around an instrument used by two cultures.
Check it out below.
Veena LP is out 8/23 on Heems’ own Veena Sounds label.