Before the Noise, Seedhe Maut had Bayaan

 On “Pankh,” Sez on the Beat, and the album that made me fall in love with Seedhe Maut.

Every time I talk about Seedhe Maut, I find myself coming back to Bayaan. It's not that I love their newer music any less. I just feel that somewhere between the growing popularity, the packed shows and everything they've achieved since, we have started overlooking the album that made me fall in love with them in the first place.

For me, it all started with “Pankh.”

I wish I could hear that song for the first time again. There is something about discovering music before you understand how important it will eventually become to you. Before you know every word, before you've attached it to different versions of yourself, and before the artist becomes someone whose work you follow almost instinctively.

I wasn't particularly into desi hip-hop. I wasn't following the scene or looking for the next great rap duo. But “Pankh” made me curious. I wanted to know who these two people were and what else they had to say. That curiosity led me to Bayaan, and suddenly, an entire world of music I had barely explored opened up.

Released on December 28, 2018, Bayaan was Calm and Encore ABJ's first full-length album, following their 2017 mixtape 2 Ka Pahada. Made with Sez on the Beat, it runs for just over 33 minutes.

What makes it special to me is its balance. It is aggressive without being exhausting, vulnerable without becoming sentimental, and ambitious without pretending that success will solve everything. I don't know whether every transition was designed to tell a particular story, but listening to the album in order, I hear a progression. It begins with other people deciding who Seedhe Maut should be and ends with the duo learning to move forward without needing everybody else's approval.

The opening skit features two aunties gossiping about the duo, their parents and their music. Before either rapper has delivered a proper verse, somebody has already decided what kind of people they are. It is funny because it is familiar. Growing up in India often means having an entire community invested in your future before you have figured it out yourself.

Then “Shaktimaan” arrives, and Sez's distorted flute and heavy bass make the song feel like a response to every person who has ever underestimated you. The opening asks, “Kya hai tera naam, kya teri pehchaan hai?” (Seedhe Maut, “Shaktimaan”).

It sounds simple until you realise how often we answer that question with things other people have given us. Our parents' names, our degrees, our professions, our salaries. The Gangadhar and Shaktimaan reference becomes a way of imagining the extraordinary person who might exist underneath all those labels. But what I love about Bayaan is that it doesn't stay in that confident space for long.

“Gehraiyaan,” featuring Vaksh, slows everything down. Calm and Encore approach heartbreak from different emotional places. Calm sounds frustrated by a relationship in which affection and expectations have become tangled. Encore remembers someone who helped him through difficult times, even though the relationship eventually ended. “Woh pyaar tha, ehsaan nahi” (Seedhe Maut, “Gehraiyaan”).

There is a tendency to rewrite relationships after they end, almost as though admitting somebody once made you happy would diminish the pain they caused you. Encore refuses that neat conclusion. Someone can leave your life without making everything you shared meaningless. And suddenly, the question from “Shaktimaan” becomes more complicated. Finding yourself is one thing. Understanding who you are when someone you love is no longer beside you is another.

“Uss Din” brings the album back toward ambition. Calm imagines a future where the struggle finally pays off and his parents can be proud of what he has achieved. The following skit, “Jolly,” brings those ambitions back into an ordinary family conversation.

There is something deeply human about that contradiction. You can reject the career your parents imagined for you and still desperately want them to be proud of the career you chose. Independence does not necessarily mean you stop caring what people think. Sometimes it means accepting that they might not understand you immediately.

Then “Meri Baggi” and “Dehshat” bring the aggression back. The flows become sharper, the delivery more confrontational, and for a few minutes, Seedhe Maut sound almost untouchable. Sometimes that is all I want from them. Two incredibly skilled rappers reminding everybody exactly how good they are.

But placing those songs together makes “PNP” much more interesting. Paisa. Nasha. Pyaar. Three things that promise happiness but can just as easily consume a person. Until now, success has largely represented freedom. But what happens when you finally acquire the things you thought would make you happy and discover that you have become dependent on them? You wanted money because you wanted independence. Now you are afraid of losing it. You wanted recognition because nobody believed in you. Now you cannot stop worrying about whether people are paying attention. The problem is not necessarily wanting these things. It is allowing them to determine your worth.

And then comes “Pankh.”

I still think it is one of the most beautiful songs Seedhe Maut have made. Sez moves away from the aggression of the previous tracks into a gentler, more melodic instrumental, while Bawari Basanti's voice gives the song an almost weightless quality. The chorus begins with a simple invitation: “Aankh khol, upar dekh” (Seedhe Maut, “Pankh”).

But the verses understand that freedom is not as simple as deciding to leave. Calm reflects on the education system and the expectations placed on children. Encore's verse becomes a conversation with himself about fear, insecurity and allowing other people's opinions to influence his decisions.

We spend so much of our lives being told what to do that eventually we stop needing anybody else to tell us. We begin dismissing our own ambitions before someone else gets the chance. Even when we finally decide to pursue something different, those doubts follow us. Having wings and knowing how to fly are not the same thing.

I think that is why “Pankh” connected with me before I knew anything about Seedhe Maut. It wasn't simply telling me to follow my dreams. It understood why doing so could be frightening.

And this is where Sez's production becomes essential to the album's larger story. The same producer who makes “Shaktimaan” sound confrontational can make “Pankh” feel like a moment of release. He understands that aggression and vulnerability do not have to be competing identities. They can belong to the same people.

Immediately after “Pankh,” the “EDOKDOG” skit returns to the world of social judgment. Then “Kyu” begins questioning the norms and pressures that prevent people from living on their own terms. It feels almost deliberate. “Pankh” tells you to fly, and the next two tracks remind you why you have been afraid to leave the ground.

In “Kyu,” the question “Aise hi jaane du kyu?” becomes a refusal to simply accept things as they are (Seedhe Maut, “Kyu”).

But I think the song asks something more difficult than simply rejecting society. How do you distinguish the expectations that protect you from the ones that limit you? Which beliefs are genuinely yours, and which have you inherited without ever questioning them? Maybe growing up is not about rejecting everything you were taught. Maybe it is about developing the ability to decide what deserves to stay.

And after all those questions, Bayaan ends with “Chalta Reh.”

“Jaane de, jaane de” (Seedhe Maut, “Chalta Reh”).

I think that is a much more meaningful ending than a grand declaration of success. The album does not end with Calm and Encore having everything figured out. Their fears haven't disappeared, their ambitions haven't been fulfilled and the world hasn't suddenly become more understanding. But they are still moving.

That is the story I hear when I listen to Bayaan in order. It begins with other people defining who Seedhe Maut are and ends with the duo deciding that they will keep making their own choices regardless. And Sez is essential to that journey. His production allows the record to move between aggression, heartbreak, uncertainty and hope without losing its identity. That is why I consider him one of the finest producers in Indian hip-hop. He doesn't just give Calm and Encore beats to rap over. He gives their contradictions somewhere to exist.

Since Bayaan, their music has evolved enormously. Nayaab expanded their storytelling, Lunch Break brought bigger collaborations and a more playful approach to their sound, while Shakti, Kshama and their independent label DL91 opened up new directions. Their 2025 compilation DL91 FM also gave younger artists a platform.

I love that evolution. I don't want Seedhe Maut to keep making Bayaan forever. But I think it is important to remember that this was the project that helped establish their identity and opened the door to what came next. Before the bigger stages and wider recognition, there was this album. Every artist deserves the freedom to outgrow their beginnings, but that doesn't make those beginnings any less important.

For me, Bayaan is not simply Seedhe Maut's first album. It is the record that showed me what they could be, and the one that made me want to follow everything they would become.

I found them through a song about learning to fly. And I love that the album ends with a song about continuing to walk.

Because flying is the dream. Continuing to move, even when you have no idea where you will land, is the part that actually makes the dream possible