The video for Mumbay — a new independent track — starts with the camera depicting vignettes of the city that flash across the screen at the speed of a flip book. A minimal drum beat is all that there is to the music initially. But it gets layered in 10 seconds with an ominous saxophone tune, akin to one in a scene from a film noir thriller where the director is building musical suspense before a pivotal moment. And that moment arrives in the form of a rap section cutting through the instruments with such hard-hitting lyrics that this megapolis would be left with a black eye if it were a person, albeit someone who knows that he deserves it.

For, Mumbai-based socially conscious rapper Aklesh Suttar aka MC Mawali — who's written and sung the words for the song that UK-based multi-percussionist Sarathy Korwar has composed — tells us that he first went around collecting mental images of the city as his inspiration. "I built a photo album in my mind with these pictures, which I then converted into lyrics for the song," he says about rhymes such as, "Dekhe dhamake jaise Diwali/ Kuch mare hai sahe ke/ Kuch lare hai kehke/ Kuch rehte hai behke/ Kabhi naa jaage/ Kuch dete hai dhoka/ Barne aage."