In Conversation with Dragon M about his recent release, Aatmabodh
Aatmabodh, a term that means self-realization in Sanskrit is an Album of five Poems, each of which, as the Dragon M calls it, are ‘one part or another of him and his heart”. The artist has culminated his five personal favourite poems, which are also the ones that have gained most praises in live shows too, in an EP well composed with the music of Dox , a Chandigarh based Music Producer, and Gaurang Sahu, a Delhi based Instrumentalist. Mrinal Mandal (aka Dragon M) is a poet, a rapper, and a novelist based out of Delhi who has already performed or hosted more than 100 events in the last three years in 7 different cities.
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About Aatmabodh, he said, “All these poems are written at different points for different purposes and I guess, the idea for making a poems’ EP struck in the lockdown and I selected my own favourite poems for the same. In the beginning, I didn’t know how this project will sound or how any of the poems will sound like. Generally, when we make a song, we have the music for it produced first and then we record over that music. Aatmabodh went the opposite way, it was recorded first on the metronome, I have to thank DevilMind for allowing me to record the whole album on his setup. and then I sent the vocal files to Dox and Gaurang. Both Dox and Gaurang did magic with the tracks, so when I first listened to my own poems in my voice but with their music in it, I jumped in joy. I couldn’t imagine my poems can sound so beautiful and the credit goes to both of them. Dox who produced 4 out of these 5 tracks and Gaurang who made Sarhadein such an iconic piece with his music.”
Dragon M, being an independent artist himself, sharing the challenges for the independent artist he said, “There is a huge list of challenges that independent artists face and the biggest of all is financial challenges. No matter what sort of art you are creating, there will be necessities of investing money into it. As for the musicians, they have to pay the recording studios, music producers, designers, sound engineers, and then for the video, distribution, and at last for promotion. That’s a lot even for a single track and mostly new artists aren’t even able to get a thousand views or streams. So most artists I know do most of these things themselves, as much as they can, this includes the promotion of your artworks as well. They have their jobs to back their artistic side, they also seek help from their friends in the circle and it is really a very great thing to see that people back each other up and help each other to grow.”
While Aatmabodh is his recent release, which will also be available on Spotify and Insta Music by 10th of December, he is about to release his debut rap album called ‘Cry No More’ which is about his own thoughts when he was going through thoughts of self-harming and suicidal depression and a LoFi love rap album which he is likely to release at the beginning of 2021.
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