Therukural
Therukural is a studio album composed by Arivu and OfRo, both members of The Casteless Collective. The band also produced the album, which highlights various political themes and was touted to be a hip-hop album with a social message. The album was released on 26 June 2019, and received positive response upon release.
Development
Background
, a member of the Casteless Collective earlier performed several songs for the band, announced his collaboration with Rohit Abraham, known as OfRo to produce their first independent album titled Therukural. It was his first attempt in producing and crooning rap numbers with this album.Rohit had been part of several bands and had worked with top music directors in the Tamil film industry. He also brought out few independent albums. His foray into Tamil music happened after he realised that there was a huge divide between the people who liked western music and Tamil music. He stated, "I wanted to bridge the gap. And that's how I decided to get into Tamil rap".
Production
"ok sir." was the first song that Arivu had written. He eventually discussed with his band's core member Tenma and OfRo, to imagine how this song could be made, then he decided to write about his own journey to rap world, while also crediting his mentor Pa. Ranjith. "anti indian.", which released early through Madras Medai, is about how humanity is above all. Rohit stated that "If you listen to the lyrics of the song, you would know that it is more patriotic than most politicians claim to be." The song "kalla mouni." is a political satire which takes on the hypocrisy of people. Arivu initially planned to curate a song to ridicule and question the stereotypes that are thrust on women and also to praise women for wanting to be exactly who they are. So he decided to give the name "tamizhachi." and he added that women should not be criticised or ridiculed for their modern thinking.After writing "tamizhachi.", Arivu planned to write another song to show how women are being treated from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. With the idea of the Thoothukudi massacre and the Kathua rape incident, he gave the title "snowlin.". This song is preceded by a recording of all the voices from the Thoothukudi massacre, from victims to news reporters to activists to finally, the voice of Snowlin's mother talking about how she felt she had given up her child as a sacrifice. Later, the final song of the album is "middle class", which is a sort of an autobiographical account of Arivu's experiences, though he stated that "it is about how young boys from the middle class dream of, how they have and fun and their lifestyle, is basically my lived experiences".