Citopir’s Manmeet Kaur Talks Conscious Hip-Hop and Mumbai Gig

Indo-French hip-hop duo Citopir – comprising MC Manmeet Kaur and rapper Mister Colfer aka Flavien – are prepping a “special culmination” of visuals as part of their performance in Mumbai on Jan. 10, 2025. The audio-visual set takes place at the Cube, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC). 

Citopir has it’s origins in 2017 when Kaur met Flavien while on her Europe tour, performing in France. Since then, they’ve gone on to perform and conduct workshops around India and other parts of the world, releasing their debut EP Wabi Sabi in 2023. Kaur says in an email interview, “We see our purpose beyond borders and speak to a larger spectrum of humanity. We engage socially and develop conversations with people, when we make murals on streets, organize workshops and soundwalks in and around schools, rope in local panchayats to NGOs for cleanups and plantations. We document all of these activities in order to share the memory with communities involved and spread the actuality of what we speak about.” 

With Wabi Sabi EP came music videos for songs like “Consumah” and “Sports Club.” Kaur says their Mumbai set will include “backdrop visual moods” as well as footage from music videos and documentaries like Let’s Go Local. She adds, “It is about supporting the message behind each song more than spoon-feeding the crowd. We are digging a new live software to make it technically possible.” The visuals also include English translations of French lyrics for audiences to understand. 

It’s going to soon be a couple of years since Citopir have been promoting Wabi Sabi and Flavien counts their set at Bharat Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram as one of his favorites before the EP promo tour kicked off, while Kaur enjoyed the lingual mix of French and English presented to audiences.

In Mumbai, the duo will also perform unreleased songs from Kaur’s upcoming project. She says the new tracks draw from her approach on “slow life” and the relation between humans and nature. Kaur adds, “This project is in progress as I try to find my space in a new society here in Kerala, after spending a few months exploring forests and cities in France last year. I am trying to open up to the idea of improvising to create songs out of what’s recorded. I’m using field recordings and some jam sessions with friends in France to source my soundscapes for these tunes.” 

Among the early wave of Indian hip-hop artists releasing conscious rap more than a decade ago, Kaur says she’s no longer “keen to be bracketed within the limit of concept labels.” She adds, “Multitudes of artform need to be explored, individually and collectively. We need to understand how social media, streaming platforms and the (men)onopoly [sic] that rules the performance industry decides what’s acceptable, and come up with unpaid reasons to change the same.”

Citopir prefer to let their artistic practices and community collaborations do the talking. “We both are coming up with more solo and common audio-visual expressions, murals, releases, workshops, concerts representing our slow life,” she adds. 

Citopir perform at The Cube, NMACC, Mumbai on Jan. 10, 2025. Get tickets here.