MUMBAI: After releasing two fierce singles ‘Savage’ and ‘Neeye Oli’, Canadian-Tamil rapper Shan Vincent de Paul shows us his fun side in his new track, ‘Hard Times’, a collaboration with ‘one of Toronto’s most prolific creatives’, R&B singer-songwriter TiKA.

‘Hard Times’ is the third single from his upcoming album, Made in Jaffna.

“The SVDP x TiKA collab has been long overdue, so this was a dream to finally get her on a record,” says Shan of the song. “It's about accepting hard times as part of the process and embracing the dark as it comes, learning to dance in the rain. We all have our respective sounds and styles, so it was beautiful to hear it come together,” he adds.

The feel-good earworm, produced by long-time SVDP collaborator La+ch is accompanied by a video that captures the colour and soul of the Toronto creative community. Created in collaboration with Toronto-based St. Lucian designer Kyle Gervacy, the video is the marriage of global diasporas coming together through fashion and dance.

Like the ‘Neeye Oli’ video – where Shan teamed up with his personal stylist Zola Zee and Gervacy to create a vibrant world to represent the Tamil diaspora – in ‘Hard Times’, Gervacy's pieces are the perfect representation of the Toronto’s various cultural influences, including India through kasavu mundu, jewellery and Kanjeevaram silk sari.

“The pieces were just as important as the elements in the song itself, they tell their own stories. We wanted to show the world what our Toronto looks like. Zola Zee the stylist did an incredible job of visually translating the city's influences,” the Mrithangam Raps creator explains.