RAJA KUMARI, Grammy-nominated songwriter and one of India’s top female rappers who launched Godmother Records in 2021, is making her own label album debut with The Bridge, set to release worldwide on April 28, 2023. The album features nine dynamic tracks that serve as The Bridge of evolution, from West to East, Ancient to Future, humanity to God and who she was to who she is becoming. Pre-save the album here.
Written and recorded entirely during the pandemic in Los Angeles and Big Bear in the US and Mumbai and Goa in India, The Bridge was penned by Kumari along with Harm Franklin, Douglas Garrette, Humberto de los Ríos, Nacho Larraza, Karan Pandav and produced by Larraza, Pandav and iLL Wayno. This marks her first full-length album with no featured artists.
“Immediately after being at the height of my career, I was thrust into solitude for the first time in years, and like all of us, I was given time to slow down and be still,” explains Kumari. “When I started making this record, I was a person drowning in doubt and fear just looking for the light and when it was done, I found love for the parts of me that I used to hide and I accepted the things about me that I was too afraid to heal. ‘RAJA KUMARI’ built the bridge, but after finishing this album…I could say that Svetha Rao [my birth name] walked across it.”
Born in Los Angeles as Svetha Rao, the Indian American artist made headlines in 2020 as the first female rapper signed to Nas’ record label. Soon after, she parted ways and created her own label, Godmother Records. Continuing with her career’s upward trajectory, Kumari signed with leading talent agency WME in 2022. Now, she has come home to her roots in the U.S. after growing a large following in India for the past decade and is now showing her most authentic self: a fearless, charismatic artist and natural-born storyteller. RAJA KUMARI’s music fuses the rhythms she absorbed as a trained classical Indian dancer with her love for hip-hop and her constant musical evolution as an artist.
“THE BRIDGE is a testament to my perseverance, my will to love and the constant nature of evolution and change,” shares the International artist. “May The Bridge serve as a monument to my love for India, my motherland, and this little girl’s dream to belong. And, may it inspire each listener to find the same within themselves.”
Recently, Kumari co-headlined Walkers & Co. Tour (by Johnnie Walker Refreshing Mixer) with multi-platinum selling award-winning artist John Legend in Mumbai and New Delhi, India. Shortly following that event, Kumari kicked off the first-ever Wireless Festival Middle East alongside fellow headliners: Travis Scott, M.I.A., and others. Additionally, over the course of her career, she was the first woman to headline NH7, India’s biggest music festival. Kumari has co-written songs with Gwen Stefani, Fifth Harmony, Twin Shadow. and Iggy Azalea. Iggy Azalea’s The New Classic was subsequently nominated for four Grammys including Best Rap Album on which Kumari was both a songwriter and vocalist. The following year Kumari took home the BMI Pop Award for penning the hit “Centuries” by Fall Out Boy.
For more information on RAJA KUMARI, please visit rajakumari.com
