Full On Rangeela Shot

In Hindi, rangeela broadly refers to someone whose personality spans an entire spectrum. 99side’s No Contract? does exactly that.

The song opens with an elegiac rendition, almost like a Saraswati Vandana — an introductory invocation before the main event begins. The elegy laments the artist’s feeling of being caught between the need to be home and the attempt to find a sense of home within the world of hip hop.

This elegy, addressed to his mother, also returns as a refrain. Halfway into the nine-minute song, just as his stay in the rap game reaches its most intense phase, the call to his mother is repeated once again.

He glides into the song with an ambient entry, rhythmically introducing the personality of his pen game through references to intense chapters of Indian history — Bose, Gandhi, Godse, Agnipath. He establishes early on that his entry into rap is itself a struggle: a constant pull between competing emotional forces, even as he remains certain about the persistence he has signed up for.

As the track progresses, the rhythm rises into a high crescendo, with the visuals aligning perfectly to amplify the intensity building in his lyrics. 99side slowly mingles with his friends, his circle expands, and just as the energy peaks, it is disrupted by the pelting of a stone — leading seamlessly into the elegiac refrain, which returns as a beautiful intermission.

From there, 99side continues with the same aggression, switching into a chopper — almost kathak-like — flow. A traditional Indian dancer complements the cadence, as he confidently claims that no one can mess with 99side on rap.

Taken as a whole, No Contract? contains elegy, lo-fi textures, ambient passages, old-school tempo, new-school chopper flows, melody, constant style and flow switches, and cinematography that moves across moods, geographies, and crowds.

This is maximalist content at its most uncompromising. Content worth a full EP, delivered in a single rangeela shot.