If you talk to the current crop of hip-hop artistes who have steadily taken over the Indian indie scene, you'll find that most of them looked to the West to gain an understanding about rap music. They will state stars like Nas, Biggie Smalls, Tupac and Eminem as their primary influences. But that wasn't the case with Nitin Mishra aka Spitfire. A new friend he'd made after switching schools in class 11 — Ayush Khare aka Wordsmith — had introduced the 21-year-old Indore resident to rap music. Khare hand-held Mishra and taught him the ropes of rhythm and poetry, and when the latter started listening to famous artistes to further his musical education, the person who left the biggest impact on him was Bohemia, a Pakistani-Punjabi rapper with a massive following.

Mishra, who's now ready to launch his debut EP at a gig in Mumbai, tells us in Hindi, "I found it difficult to keep up with English lyrics when I first started listening to this music, but I felt a real connect with Bohemia. I started writing properly only after listening to him, and even now, you'll find him on the top of my playlist."