Chicago hip-hop producer Lapgan, real name Gaurav Nagpal, samples and blends music from the South Asian diaspora—which has helped him learn more about the breadth and depth of music from the Indian subcontinent. On his most recent trip to India to visit family, Lapgan met a vital collaborator, voracious music collector Nishant Mittal, who runs the Instagram account Digging in India. Lapgan had sent a cassette of his 2021 album, Duniya Kya Hai, to Sachin Bhatt, the Bangalore-based artist who’d designed its cover, and when Bhatt posted something on social media, Mittal got in touch with Lapgan looking for a copy. As Lapgan told Passion of the Weiss contributor Pranav Trewn in August, Mittal turned out to live about ten minutes from Lapgan’s maternal grandmother’s house in New Delhi, which made meeting in person fairly easy. Mittal shared the vintage records and historical knowledge that shaped Lapgan’s newest album, History. (It’s the debut release from Veena Sounds, a label founded by New York rapper Himanshu “Heems” Suri from Das Racist.) To create his brilliantly variegated patchworks, Lapgan sourced samples from Bollywood, Lollywood, and Kollywood film scores, Bengali religious songs, Carnatic and Hindustani classical music, and more—and he doesn’t leave a single stray thread that he doesn’t intend. Like most beat-scene producers, Lapgan makes tracks that are explicit about their sample-based nature; part of the appeal of his work is recognizing that, say, the relaxed drum break on “The Illest Raja” doesn’t come from the same time or place as its occasional scuffed horn. All the elements he combines fit like they were always meant to be together, in loose, funky, and seemingly unpredictable patterns. Lapgan shows us a new way for records from the past to form an inviting road map to the present.
Lapgan Khanvict headlines; Raaginder and Lapgan open. Sat 11/18, 9 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $25, $20, 18+