Shauharty live at the ‘Farookh’ launch gig at Oddbird Theatre in New Delhi in September 2025. Photo: @dasvimanzeela/Instagram
Among all the intriguing things about New Delhi artist Shauharty’s new mixtape Farookh, we can start with the album cover. It’s an old photo of Egypt’s King Farouk in royal army garb, with Shauharty’s face photoshopped over it.
The difference from the original is Shauharty’s expression. “It’s an extremely sad look on my face; it’s bleak. He’s smiling in the original photo,” he tells Rolling Stone India over a call. Discovering the photo in his school days, Shauharty says the exploration was an outcome of being “a super nerdy student.”
The persona of Farookh across 14 tracks is fleshed out — flaws, vulnerabilities and all. On stage, when he played with this band, Darookhs, at Oddbird Theatre in New Delhi on Sept. 27, 2025, it was another deep dimension. “Four years ago, I used to watch videos of Peter Cat Recording Co. performing and thought, ‘What a venue. I want to play a band show there. Four years later, I pulled it off, because I just cannot give up on an idea,” Shauharty says of the sold-out show that will soon head to more cities.
Dressed in military outfits and staging a “dramatization” of the entire project, Shauharty’s Farookh persona has been around since 2022, gradually introduced via singles like “Saddam Hussainé” with producer Medicatedminds, artists Pahaad, fellow experimental artist Darzi and Arpan Kumar (guitarist-vocalist from indie act Green Park), “Jholi Bharde Meri” with Medicatedmints, Arun Ydv and Waydant and “Delicate Ache of Unknown,” produced by 30Key! and a collab with singer-songwriter Karshni. Swerving between alternative, psychedelic hip-hop, jazz and funk grooves and indie songwriting and languages including Marathi, Hindi and English, Farookh is exactly the kind of roving project that is far and few in Indian hip-hop, where most of Shauharty’s fans arguably come from.
Conceptually, the meaning of Farookh intertwines with the arc of Shauharty’s life experiences.
“In Arabic, Farook means the one who distinguishes right from wrong. That’s why there’s Side A and Side B on the tape. Side A talks about ego, narcissism, male chauvinism, etc. And then we go into Side B, where I’m talking about queer identity, acceptance, home,” he says. The journey of an egotistic, braggadocious person reflects how Shauharty used to see himself, after his debut mixtape Madheera came out in 2022. “I used to, at one point in my career, think that I was better than everyone who was doing anything, and that cultivates a lot of negativity in you. So I had to let that go in a way,” he says.
On “Earth, Wind & Fire” with Arslan and Karshni, there are personal confessions of being groped and molested, cathartically emerging over hazy hip-hop beats. The song “Indulgence Of Adolescence” revels in a bit of self-aware irony, talking about how “I’ll never let this industry masculinize me” amid mostly narcissistic bars. Elsewhere, Kashmiri hip-hop artist Ahmer adds fire to the psychedelic “Stancyk!” and the dreamy “Keith Haring” features rappers Ghildiyal, Frappe Ash and Raaj Babu taking turns on the mic.
To call Farookh immersive is perhaps cliché, but the artist is quick to point out how “ChatGPT has ruined that word.” Citing influences like Kanye West and his album The Life of Pablo (2016) and Tyler, The Creator, Shauharty says world-building is very crucial to his projects. He understands “there’s a lot to grab” in a 14-track album when singles dominate attention spans. “I just wish that people give it time and let it breathe. Don’t make early impressions, because that kills music,” he adds.
Released in September via platforms like Bandcamp and DM2Buy (a move that was inspired by the likes of Radiohead when they released In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want digital album in 2007), Farookh is now on streaming platforms as well. “The idea of purchasing the album adds to the grand scheme of things, where somebody who is experiencing all of that [album] feels like they are involved in the journey and with this project,” Shauharty says.
In the journey that he’s undertaken to make Farookh, Shauharty says the music has made him realize “a lot of things” about himself. There is catharsis, self-acceptance and making sense of his identity that was shaped from living in the Northeast and later, being an “outsider” in New Delhi. He adds, “Now that it’s out, I do see myself a certain way, in the best way possible than I used to before. I’m in a much better place with my head,”
Up next, the conceptual band Darookhs and Shauharty plan to take Farookh across the country. “We have been planning on doing a full-blown tour with the band. That’s gonna happen sometime later this year or early next year. I just want people to sit with the project for a couple of months and get the flow of it,” he says.
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