Ever wondered what it would be like to listen to a live hip-hop gig during peak hours inside a Virar fast? Well, that's pretty much what we felt like when we attended Azadi Records' first-anniversary showcase concert in Mumbai last May. After waiting outside the Khar venue for 20 minutes since entry had been temporarily blocked, we entered to find the place packed to the brim. There was hardly any space to move, forget about dancing with gay abandon. But people still seemed to be having a great time, as the artistes on the independent label's roster performed 15 to 20-minute sets one by one to a thunderous response.

That sort of frenzy is expected this time as well since, co-founder Mo Joshi informs, tickets for their second anniversary gig this weekend are already almost sold out. The format of the event, however, will be different this time. "Imagine it as an Azadi Records playlist on a streaming website being performed live. What we have done is compiled a 90-minute set that involves 25 tracks from our roster being played in such a way that the crowd doesn't know which artiste is going to come on stage next," Joshi says.