Much-lauded Punjabi artist Prabh Deep is a shapeshifter. For almost a decade, the rapper, singer, songwriter and producer has been journeying in and out of Indian hip-hop with a versatility shown by few others in the game. Just when you think you can pigeonhole his style, the star reinvents himself and goes in a new direction. But a mixtape of reimagined gems and new treasures? That’s a fresh adventure even for Deep. Hot on the heels of the artist’s early 2024 EP KING Returns—and not that long after his 2022 album Bhram—DSP showcases Deep’s ever-evolving sound and style over the years. Across nine tracks (including a punchy new version of “Daang” from KING Returns), the mixtape highlights just how diverse the star’s output has been throughout his career. Plus, it features more collaborations than he’s ever packed into a record before. It’s perhaps his most accessible work to date as there’s something here for everyone. Deep, who has previously rejected categorisation as a rapper or hip-hop artist, tells Apple Music that once DSP was compiled from projects old and new, he realised just how much he’d missed rapping over the past couple of years—the melodic, introspective KING Returns, for instance, sees him singing far more than spitting out lyrics. “That feeling,” he says, “that adrenaline after you make something very hype…. maybe I was missing it. Maybe it was in me all along.” The first glimpse of any DSP artwork—which kicked off a series of online teasers in 2024 for his fans—was a comic-style image of Deep sitting in a meeting with his team. A whiteboard in the background indicated how he’d ticked his albums, singles and EPs off his list when shortlisting tracks for the mixtape. It perfectly summed up the process for the artist. “For the very first time,” he says, “I was not pressured by the concept of a project. I usually limit myself with the concept. I don’t go out of the box that I create for it. This one was very free. We could do whatever we wanted.” Below, Deep takes Apple Music through the eclectic DSP mixtape, track by track. “Daang V1” “I think the idea of putting out a different version of a previously released song stems from old jazz tunes. Different people have sung the same song. I don’t see great artists doing each other’s songs any more. This was the original version of the track…. Actually, this was also not the original. The original version had a different beat, which I picked up online. Some other artists from the scene had already done a song on it and I have a good relationship with that camp. The flagbearer of that camp came to me and he’s like, ‘Yo, my artists already have a song on this beat.’ And I was like, ‘Fuck, okay.’ So I changed it. “I was just browsing through the songs that I wanted to do for this mixtape. I came across this one and I’m like, ‘Damn, this bangs. Crazy.’ I have other tracks like this, like V1s, which will come on the second volume of DSP, maybe.” “Ustaadi” “I was very hesitant to connect with [Pakistani rapper] Faris Shafi out of respect. I respect him as an artist because he, out of all of us, I think he never diluted anything he touched. He spoke his mind. He was not worried about how the world would take it. For years I thought, ‘I don’t want to say anything wrong.’ But when I connected with him, he was a very nice guy. It’s almost like how people feel about me, like a lot of people say, ‘You are different. We thought you would be angry all the time.’ I learned a lot from him in terms of how to navigate a career and the day-to-day as an artist because we have a lot of mood swings. That’s where the music comes from. “[Producer] Scuti produced this one, as well [as some other tracks on the record]. By the time the masters came, I forgot my part of the song—I was singing Faris’ part. I just loved it so much. I will rate this as one of the craziest collaborations [I’ve done] up until now. That’s how authentic it was. This was for a brand—like a one-minute song—but it got rejected by them. Creatively, it was bang on with the visuals and the director loved it too. I knew this was a crazy track on its own. The brand didn’t know that and they’re probably hearing it now and they’re like, ‘Fuck!’” “Zum!!!” “Every [2022 writing and recording] session in Thailand I did was crazy. There are still songs from the sessions that aren’t out yet—big ones. ‘Zum!!!’ was one of the special ones. It’s a very different work ethic in the studio that they [Bangkok-based hip-hop artist Big Calo and producer Syps] have. When I worked there, it was kind of different because you’re aiming at one thing and you’re not thinking about the project. You’re not thinking about anything else. You’re not thinking about how other people are gonna feel and how you’re gonna act. So the session was really focused. “Eight words is all I did on this song. It’s crazy to me as well because I like to write as much as I can and then take it out. I actually thought of getting another rapper from here [India] to have more traction—just thinking business-wise—to churn more numbers. But the song fit so perfectly with Big Calo and Alex [Syps]. We were on a different plane together. There was originally a sample from Karate Kid on it. But we couldn’t get it cleared, so we took it out.” “8-FIGGAAH!” “This was the first track that the whole DSP idea came from. That’s how it started. People around me, they heard the song and asked me: ‘When are we putting this out?’ It was from the same Thailand trip in 2022. We were on the beach, me and Alex [Syps], and we rented a bungalow and turned that into a makeshift studio. We made a bunch of songs. “I clearly remember hearing the sample that’s in this song and I was like, ‘This is it. Put this in the project right now.’ I had a verse back then and created another hook, actually while shooting the ‘TRAP PRAA’ music video with [rapper] Raftaar. He gave me a crazy idea and the hook stemmed from it. I was being too lazy to write the second verse and I wanted to have someone Punjabi [in it]. I couldn’t think of anyone other than [Punjabi rapper] GD 47. I like him as an artist but, more than that, I have a very personal connection with him. He’d been here before all of us—way before even I started or I knew what hip-hop was. “So I thought, ‘Okay, I can’t think of anybody else who can do justice to it.’ When GD 47 comes on, there is another jump in the energy. The track’s already energetic to begin with. He called back on the ‘Class-Sikh Maut, Vol. II’ verse I had and there is a crazy story behind that but I’ll disclose that later in my life. GD 47 was on a gap year but he went ham on this track. I feel blessed and respected that he went on the mic for me again.” “O.T.M.” “This ‘O.T.M.’ stands for ‘on the move’. I was filling the space in this song with the right intent and the right artists. I was removing myself from the work for a while—taking a step back and seeing it as a song that is not mine. I thought, ‘What do I need and whose ideology will go?’ “The first artist I got on board was Alistair [Alvin]. I connected with him because he’s also a producer. We wrote this song over calls, back and forth. He’s doing two lines and I’m doing two lines. He sent me this part that became my favourite, which comes after the second hook. Just the melody of it is so fucking brilliant. Alistair’s part was so strong, lyrics-wise and melody-wise, so I needed someone with a strong, confident voice. I’ve been a fan of KAEM—he used to go by Mohan Singh back in the day. We did a track back in 2015-2016 and it was so amazing to reconnect with him again. I’m grateful he did something after a while and that I could bring him back to the mic again. “With Dhanji, I had that part for him. When I shifted the instrumental from trap to old school and I still had 808s, I wanted somebody wild—and who’s wilder than Dhanji? Even though we had creative differences—which I thoroughly enjoy, by the way—you don’t see it on the track. Overall, everyone fits perfectly and no one overshadows anyone, even though none of these artists know each other. Me just talking to them was a whole other trip. I was handling everything until I got the masters.” “Rapha” “To be honest, I wanted to make a commercial track. This is me doing that. I went really left field with it. When I started off, it was, ‘What can I say that resonates and is simple enough, and that heals people?’ I’m talking about my move to Goa from Tilak Nagar [an area in New Delhi]. That was a different world and you can get lost in it. When I came to Goa, I saw people who think they know better because they’re here, but they’re equally lost and I’m included in that. I accepted it. I thought moving to a new place would make my life better, but it just made my shadows stand in front of my consciousness, in front of my face. I thought I’d learn new ways of living life, but I saw the same pain, same sorrows, same happiness. It wasn’t that different. “I wouldn’t say it was tough times but it was tricky—I would’ve lost my way completely. I’m glad I wrote this song and I got out of it. I’m talking about, ‘Do you remember the time you were crying and you have no idea why you’re crying? Do you remember that pressure you felt? Do you remember that time when you were feeling really anxious and you didn’t know where that anxiety was coming from?’ This is what I’m talking about: the state of mind. It really helped me in my tough situations. I came out of it saying, ‘It’s okay to feel this intense. You’re not alone.’” “Wajood” “There were two sessions for this. First one was when I got the Moog [synthesizer]. Whenever I get new gear, I call Scuti and he fucks around with it. So he did the bassline that comes in. It’s not very complicated but it gets you once it comes in. I kept this instrumental for a very long time. ‘Rapha’ and ‘Wajood’ were written in the same week. It’s an extension of ‘Rapha’ in some ways. It’s about asking, ‘Who are you in this mad world?’ I’m talking to myself and asking this. I was sitting myself down and having a conversation like, ‘Bro, you need to figure this out. What do you want in life?’ “It was New Year’s [at the start of 2024] and I don’t know why but I felt like I was on top of the world. I looked up at the sky and said to God: ‘Give me whatever hurdles this year—I’m gonna fucking kill it.’ And God really gave me hurdles. He gave me a lot of problems. I think by March, I was just on my knees, like, asking for forgiveness for my wish. That’s when I wrote this track. It was coming from this inner turbulence. Outside, everything is happy—I’m doing well in my career and financially—but internally, there’s this thing going on that I need to figure out.” “Hood-Robin” “This also started out as a production thing with Scuti. He was just flexing his ability in front of me. He’s like, ‘Wait, let me show you what polyrhythms can do.’ He created this very crazy instrumental. It’s almost like colliding different worlds together. So I’m like, ‘What if I collide two ideologies together, which is Robin Hood, who we all know, and [Pablo] Escobar, where you have all the money?’ Escobar did not grow up rich but when he got the money, he did not give it away. Imagine the twist in the history of humanity if he’d, maybe, freed up Colombia’s debt? Where would we be today? The problems you think there are—the bigger the problem, the easier the solution. This was the last session in my house in Delhi and I had called it ‘C-20’ because that was my address there. This vocal tone, I had not tried it before. I think only Scuti brings it out.” “Veer-G” “We had this one trip, [Mumbai-based composer, producer and performer] Sickflip and I. We were sitting on a beach in Goa. We rented a little bungalow and set it up. I got my speakers from my home and we were just going through some tunes to start with. That was the first session. Then he actually invited me to his house in Bombay. His studio is in a very beautiful spot; there’s a view of the jungle outside. “We had tried to work together for many years. And finally, I think we did two songs in one day. We were bouncing off each other’s energy. For ‘Veer-G’, the hook came first. In one hour, he gave me a drum—some 808s on it. I wrote something on it and these were the original recordings from the first session. It fits well with DSP and there’s a reason I kept it as the last song because there’s a follow-up EP with Sickflip. He can make dirt sound clean.”