New Delhi, Oct. 23 -- On the evening of 20 July, as videos of students fleeing police lathis and tear gas in central Delhi flooded social media, Nagpur rapper Garam Kalakar's phone was blowing up. People were sending him DMs and tagging him in footage of the day's events, asking why he hadn't said anything yet. The 40-year-old musician, whose real name is Vinod Balkrishna Waghade, was over a thousand kilometres away in Raipur, busy hosting an event. But he had built up a significant following over 15 years of socially conscious rap, and his fans were demanding a response.

That night, back at his hotel, Waghade sat down with a pen and a notepad, trying to write "a song that sounded like the news," he recalls. "Something that will tell peo...