What was unique about our American Gangster experience were the unmistakable parallels we observed between the men Jay-Z and Denzel portrayed to the gangsters depicted in 1970s Bollywood films. One such movie, Don, with its story line, brilliant colors, and disco-era style of clothing was reminiscent of American Blaxploitation films (e.g., Superfly, Foxy Brown) of the 1970s. The more we watched and listened to American Gangster, and the more we revisited Bollywood classics like Don, the more inevitable fusing the stories of the American and Indian gangster themes became.

Wanting to experiment with the idea musically, we decided to take it to the studio. Our initial attempt was to create a mash-up project layering Jay’s vocals from his American Gangster album over Indian flavored beats, but as we began laying down the vocals, we found ourselves editing, rearranging and adding so many of our own elements, that we ended up working with completely original tracks. Pretty soon we were in the studio four nights per week.

Over six months of late-night studio sessions and gallons of pineapple-ginger juice later, we were ready to mix and master. By now we’d created eight original tracks of our own, had one crazy track from our boy ElekTro4, six mash-ups, and edits based on tracks from Dan The Automator, Batsauce, and a few other notable producers. We received ongoing feedback from listening sessions held for friends, producers and music industry tastemakers, until we finally felt ready for our good friend and engineering guru, dj.sae.one, to master it. He loved the project and blessed it with the gloss and low-end finish we were looking for.

Hindustani Gangster was born.