MUMBAI: Madboy/Mink, the Funk - Nu Disco duo comprising actor-musician Imaad Shah and Saba Azad is a two of a kind pair based in Mumbai. The two have been creating quite a buzz with their live guitar, synthesisers and soulfully destroyed vocals lately. Mashing up dirty electro and funk with old school Harlem is their forte.

Madboy/Mink recently performed at Baleno Wicked Weekends party (Raasta, Khar), which is India's longest party marathon. Also, the eclectic duo performed at Bacardi NH7 Weekender, Shillong on 22 October 2016, and will be performing at Bacardi NH7 Weekender on 5 November 2016 at Hyderabad. Radioandmusic.com had a small converse with the band on their collaboration, surroundings, nu disco anti-aesthetic musical approach along with all that jazz.

One-half of the duo, Imaad stated that they portray the music as they take inspiration from many musicians. However, they consider that they are inspired by EDM and Madboy/Mink can break down the barriers and differences by the spur. At the same time, the other half of the duo Saba stated, “Hopefully we get copyrights too soon enough!”

Do you know apart from acting, Imaad was playing as a solo musician before meeting Saba?

“I met her at a friend’s party and heard her voice; I was really affected by the tone of her voice. It’s really quiet something else, that no other artist could have such texture,” stated Imaad.

All at once, Saba said before meeting Imaad, she was singing for a couple of bands but she wanted to make my own music, go independent evermore. While they were working on a play together, they used to hang out a lot for rehearsals and found out that they have plenty in common, then one thing led to another and later on Imaad asked her to lend her voice for one of his tracks. On the same, Imaad said, “Then it was non-stopover the course of time.”

Madboy/Mink believes in doing something which reflects their personality and worldview. When we asked them what is distinctive about their sounds, they said, “We just like to break down the genre and barriers as much as we can. It becomes like something different from what we started with. There’s no pitch perfect or fixed track or something. We make music that we like to hear to. Yes, we are inspired by EDM at the end of the day, but we create our own sound our won music”

Saba said they really work on their won and not necessarily looking for any association with any record label and she prefers to work in a home studio. At the same time, Imaad stated little bit elaborately, “It is a very different cultural climate in the music industry right now in 2016. Much different from what it was earlier, our unique quality is that we produce our music at home as in DIY manner. We go in for cost cutting method; we record our tracks at home, practice guitars at home. Idea is to make rock fresh but in very cheap manner. Like the mother of instruments being independent is much better that we prefer (smile).”

Imaad said, rather than making millions of dollars in some big studio, they prefer to work with interesting labels that would be in their sound.

While talking about their full of life live acts, Saba said, “I think independent musicians from our scene make their bread from such shows live shows actually. Visibility for me n Imaad has increased. Going live is really imperative and enjoyable, seeing the audience in front of you, the energy that they through back at you, it’s really significant for us.”

On that remark, they have also played in Amsterdam this summer that was the 1st international show. On 29 July 2016 they performed at Red Light Radio, Amsterdam and at Kimia, and Sorte Firkante, Copenhagen on 2-4 August 2016.