CARTEL MADRAS | Experimental Hip-hop duo
City: Calgary/Tamil Nadu, India
Instagram: @cartel.madras
Previous work: “Pork And Leak”, “Goonda Gold”, “Drift”
Individually they’re Eboshi and Contra. Together they’re the bold, racy, and hard-hitting experimental hip-hop duo Cartel Madras. Raised in Calgary, the sisters were born in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, lending to the range and diversity of their sound.
While the two got started in music early, playing piano at 3 and 5 years old respectively, as well as taking dance lessons, it wasn’t until 2018 that they started performing. It was then that they released their debut mixtape Project Goonda Part 1: Trapistan. Since then they’ve wracked up some quite a few accomplishments, including being signed to the legendary Sub Pop records in 2019, having their single “Goonda Gold” featured in MTV, Vogue, NME and UFC 4, and their song “WORKING” being featured in the soundtrack for the final season of the Hulu series Shrill.
The stages they’re performing on are also getting bigger. In 2020, they went on a North American tour, and this year alone they performed at SXSW alongside label-mates CHAI, were one of the headlining acts in Berlin for POP-KULTUR 2022, and are touring the UK and Europe in this September.
Not only are they innovative with their sound which they call “Goonda Rap”, combining elements of the underground trap, queer, and punk scene, but they produce and direct most of their own music videos (an impressive feat if you’ve even seen a Cartel Madras music video).
More about Cartel Madras
What is your biggest professional achievement?
“We’ve had a lot of unique artistic milestones, and our creative achievements span a lot of different disciplines. On a larger level, being able to execute a project such as Cartel Madras from the prairies and now have it be known globally, is a dream. In the past couple years we have also been able to direct music videos, create films from our own screenplays, grow our collective into an arthouse – these achievements feel huge in our life, especially to be able to play in-between artistic disciplines and explore it with a sense of authenticity and vision.”
What obstacles/challenges have you had to face to get to where you are today?
“This is a strange question, as in retrospect everything feels both massive and small. There is an assorted platter of community, family, mental health, physical, and personal life challenges that punctuate our history – the hope is that we move with the current and are able to rise above it and through it with every passing year. Obviously, the entertainment industry itself has massive obstacles and restrictions for artists to exist and create authentically, we feel the push and pull of those forces too.”
What’s something people should know about you?
Eboshi: “I’m currently working on a play, a main focal point of it is the Canadian music industry. Can’t wait to spill some tea.”
Contra: “I’ve been secretly working on a novel for like three years, maybe I’ll finally finish it next year.”
