Popular Indian-American music duo and twin brothers Krish and Akash Chandani, aka THEMXXNLIGHT, recently collaborated with rapper Wiz Khalifa for a new song 'Naughty Or Nice'.
They are also the first artists of Indian descent to collaborate with rap legend. Needless to mention, the musicians are over the moon about their single. In a candid chat with Free Press Journal, the duo said, "It has been a great experience so far working with Wiz! We are definitely proud to be the first artists of Indian descent to collaborate with him. He has shown us a lot of support over the years, and we are very thankful."
The singers have been a key component on Khalifa’s earlier releases, however, this track marks the duo’s maiden feature with the American rapper on their independent release. "We have released six songs with Wiz so far, but 'Naughty or Nice' is our first release featuring him. It is definitely a good feeling."
Elaborating on how they approached Wiz for the project, they said, "We were in the studio together and randomly played it for him and he loved it."
Krish and Akash Chandani with rapper Wiz Khalifa |
The duo was inspired to create the song by events that happened during their last year of college. Speaking about how the song came about, they stated, "In our early college years, one of us had met a girl. She would be really sweet and fun to be around, but most of the time, she would play games and never commit to the relationship. One night around 2 am, after a college party, we both went back to our dorm room and talked about how confused we were about this girl’s intentions. This situation inspired the creation of 'Naughty or Nice' and we recorded the song on the spot. No studio. No big setup. Just us two, the mic, and a computer."
"We had actually completed the song without Wiz Khalifa’s verse a few years ago and at that time, we had no idea that we would collaborate with him. After our feature on Wiz Khalifa’s 'Rolling Papers 2', we met multiple major labels to discuss our career and to show them our unreleased music. 'Naughty Or Nice' was a standout track amongst all the label reviews! Since it was just THEMXXNLIGHT vocals at the time, they recommended that we hold off the release till we had a good enough global feature since they believed it was already a smash hit," they said.
"After tons of studio sessions with Wiz Khalifa and after our performance at Sunburn India with him, we felt we had built up our relationship to the next level. One day, we randomly decided to play the song for him in the studio to get his feedback. He immediately stood up and started dancing and asked, 'Ya’ll want a feature on this? Man, your vocals sound insane. I’ll hop on it right now.' About 30 minutes later, he completed his verse, and the engineer arranged the song. We must have played it back around 20 times! The vibes were amazing, and we just felt super proud of ourselves at that moment," the duo added.
Akash and Krish averred that they feel proud to be representing the Indian community around the globe. They said their passion is to inspire the younger generation to pursue their passions. However, the duo said their journey in the global music arena hasn't been a cakewalk.
"We’re just proud of how far we have come and to be representing the Indian community around the world. Our journey has definitely had its challenges as not many people have experimented in this space. But it has been eye-opening and really fun. We have been able to collaborate with top artists from around the world," they said.
Krish and Akash studied engineering in college and initially it was a task for them to pursue music. But they never gave up on their passion for music and eventually, they decided to sing and release their own music.
The twin brothers have been together for several and believe there are many advantages to working together. "We have two minds working to accomplish one task. We always go back and forth on the melodies, and it really helps the song come together. Branding wise it has helped provide a unique dynamic that no one has really seen before." they said.
The duo says they have grown up listening to Indian music and plans to target the Indian audience in the future. "We have done an album with Sony Music India where we released Indian influenced/Hindi music. We have also been in talks with singer and rapper Badshah so it would be super fun to collaborate with him," they added.
The identical twins have had an outstanding run in the global music arena thus far. With interesting collaborations featuring Megan Thee Stallion, Travis Scott, French Montana, Swae Lee, TM88, DJ Snake, Kirko Bangz, Roy Woods, Raja Kumari, Sukh-E, Mickey Singh in the pipeline, the young duo are quickly setting themselves up for a major global South Asian takeover and are a pair of artists you definitely need to keep on your radar.
