In our second collaboration with Indian rapper Raftaar, on 1st July 2022, we at Urban Monkey dropped our most awaited collection yet, Beyond Raftaar™. This collection represents an experimental visual identity created exclusively for rapper Raftaar and his fans.
In an attempt to create official merchandise for him, the design team took a deep dive into what epitomises ‘Raftaar’ and more so Dilin Nair himself.
Born in 1988 in God’s Own Country, Dilin Nair is inarguably one of the most popular hip-hop artists in our country today. Most well-known by his stage name “Raftaar”, his beloved fans also know him as “RR” and “RAA”.
An ex-dancer, Raftaar started his career in music in 2008, and through hustle and hard work. In 2014, he bagged the Best Urban Song at the Brit Asia TV Music Awards with the release of “Swag Mera Desi” and the rest is history. Not a stranger to the struggle of an everyday underground artist in India, Raftaar is an inspiration to the underground street community. He is everything we stand for, a dreamer, hustler, believer, and change maker. A truly multifaceted artist in every sense, we had to create a unique visual identity to really represent him.
Almost a year in the making, our design team went back to the drawing board and started from scratch to make the secret sauce that makes the illustrations in this collection really stand apart, starting with creating a logo that exhibits “Raftaar” in the devanagari script and the iconic “RR” logo. Our iconic Raftaar snapbacks and our trucker in the collection star these iconic logos. Every Raftaar t-shirt features his signature “RR” logo patch.
Posters
Inspired by his love for elephants and the Japanese culture,assets were manifested that showcased “Eraavat”, the white elephant, with a kaybug (Y2K) aesthetic. These assets were then carefully curated into posters which became the starting point for the designs.
Watch Raftaar X Urban Monkey | full film
Inspired by his love for gaming, our designs have a unique take on Raftaar’s video game “Black Sheep '' and its main character. This futuristic, gaming-focused design can be seen on the Space Shooter and Space Ninja Raftaar baseball caps. It is most convincingly emphasised on the front of the Metaverse and Gamers Don’t Die Raftaar Tshirts.
Raftaar loves elephants. Everyone loves elephants. Inspired by the magnificence of these God like creatures and combining it with aesthetics from Japanese culture, the centre of our design was born, Eraavat.
Our Eraavat Raftaar Snapback pays its respect to this beautiful design. This unique design also dominates the 1988 Raftaar cap and face mask. Additionally, this design also enhances the back of our Spirit Animal and Killer Instinct Raftaar t-shirts.
A legendary collection for icons in the making all over the world. Just like Raftaar, we wanted this collection to give a voice to the under-represented street community in our country. With many more collaborations to empower artists and athletes, we are working towards our goal to build the largest self-sustaining underground street community of India.
