Raftaar

2008-2012: Early career, Mafia Mundeer and Dance India Dance

Raftaar initially began his music career by making tracks with his childhood friends and fellow rappers Ikka and Lil Golu. After a while of making tracks and uploading them online, Yo Yo Honey Singh heard a track on Orkut which was uploaded by the trio, then known as The Black Wall Street Desis.^[13] Singh reached out to the three youngsters and invited them to his studio in Okhla, Delhi. According to Ikka on his track "Interview", Singh worked with the three youngsters while also giving them stage names; "Young Amli" for Ikka, "Raftaar" for Dilin who went by the name OniMaxxx/Max and "Lil Golu" for Sahil who had the nickname Golu. Some of his collaborations with Singh include "Kamli Kamli" featuring Rimz J and "Sharabia".^[14] Raftaar also started his career as a dancer, as Max and participated in a reality TV show Dance India Dance in 2011, in 'DID Double' along with a friend named Manik.^[15]

In the meantime, Raftaar split from Mafia Mundeer due to credit-related problems, most notably involving the dispute related to the track "Dope Shope" from Singh's album, International Villager.^[16] He appeared in the music video for a few seconds and alleged that his scenes were also cut.^[17]

2012-2017: The Titans, Swag Mera Desi and mainstream break-out

After the split, he then formed a group 'The Titans' with Badshah and Sachit Takkar (Sachh). They produced many songs together in the Punjabi music industry and Bollywood together, most notably for Deep Money's album Born Star, on tracks like "Bottle", "Majnu" and "Sugar".^[18][19]

Raftaar became widely known and recognised after releasing his song "Swag Mera Desi" in 2013 with Manj Musik. The line "Ab yeh karke dikhao" (transl. Now try to do this) from the song was interpreted as a subliminal directed towards Yo Yo Honey Singh,^[20] who used the phrase in his song "Party With The Bhoothnath" which led to a dispute between the two rappers in media.^[21] "Swag Mera Desi" won Best Urban Song at the Brit Asia TV Music Awards in 2014.^[22]

The next year, he skyrocketed to mainstream popularity with the songs, "All Black", with Sukhe and Jaani,^[23] as well as the song "Toh Dishoom" from the 2016 film Dishoom.^[24][25]

2017-2020: KALAMKAAR, debut album and collaborations

In 2017, Raftaar debuted in the Bengali music industry through the film One which featured singer Vishal Dadlani and Raftaar.^[26] In the same year, he founded the record label KALAMKAAR, alongside Ankit Khanna, signing a variety of acts, such as KR$NA, Rashmeet Kaur, Deep Kalsi, Karma, Yunan and Harjas Harjaai.^[27] He also produced and rapped a song for the Chaamp soundtrack.^[28] He released his debut album, Zero To Infinity, the following year in May.^[29] The album spawned the single, "Baby Marvaake Maanegi", accompanied by a music video featuring Nora Fatehi.^[30][31]

In the same year, in September, Raftaar appeared on a podcast with Raaj Jones, where he questioned if fellow rapper Emiway Bantai was generating enough revenue from hip-hop. The statement was taken out of context and resulted in Emiway dropping "Samajh Mein Aaya Kya", targeting Raftaar and refuting his claims that Emiway wasn’t earning much yet, and further added that he eventually would build an empire of his own. Raftaar responded with his own track, "Sheikh Chilli", where he called out Emiway for taking the statement out of context and dissected his false claims. Emiway responded again with "Giraftaar", which prompted Raftaar to respond with the song "Anime Hentai" (now known as Awein Hai).^[32] This paved the way for a wave of commercialisation in the genre, as many Indian rappers claimed to have benefited from the publicity from a credit standpoint. It also gave rise to many other publicised beefs taking place.^[33]

Raftaar collaborated with Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan for the second edition of Breezer Vivid Shuffle in 2019,^[34] and in the same year, started judging the reality shows MTV Hustle, Dance India Dance and MTV Roadies. The next year, he released his second album, Mr. Nair, through Zee Music Company, featuring his labelmates KR$NA, Rashmeet Kaur, Deep Kalsi, Karma, Yunan, and Harjas Harjaayi among others.^[35]

2020-present: Further collaborations and HARD DRIVE Vol.1 & Vol.2

In 2021, he released his collaboration with labelmate Rashmeet Kaur, "Ghana Kasoota", with the music video featuring Surbhi Jyoti.^[36][37] Over the next few years, Raftaar continued to collaborate with various upcoming desi hip-hop artists like Shah Rule, MC Stan, Seedhe Maut, King, Chaar Diwaari, on singles and also, on a collaborative EP with Prabh Deep, titled PRAA, in addition to releasing his own projects, most notably the HARD DRIVE Vol. 1, and its sequel, in 2022 and 2024, respectively.^[38][39]

He was seen as a guest judge on 2 episodes of India's Got Latent in 2024 and returned to judge the fourth season of MTV Hustle, after being absent from the previous two seasons.^[40] In 2025, he participated in the reality show The Traitors as a contestant, until he was eliminated in the sixth episode.^[41]

Albums

• Zero To Infinity (2018)^[42]
• Mr. Nair (2020)^[35]

EPs and Mixtapes

• WTF (Witness The Future) Mixtape: Vol. 1 (2013-14)^[43][44]
• BAR'ISH EP (2020–21) (unreleased)
• HARD DRIVE Vol.1 (EP) (2022) ^[45]
• PRAA (EP) (2023)^[46]
• HARD DRIVE Vol.2 (EP) (2024)^[47]

Singles and collaborations

Film music