If you only know Raga from “Kaleshi Chori” and “Kheench Maari,” you know the rager. His new mixtape is here to introduce you to the other guy.
No Formula, released on Def Jam Recordings India, runs 21 tracks and about an hour and 10 minutes. It is the New Delhi rapper’s first big body of work since his breakout debut album Rap Ka Mausam in 2019, and he is pretty clear about what it is for. “It’s more like an audition from me to the industry, telling them that this is not just all I am,” he told Rolling Stone India in a 17 September interview.
The Guest List Is The Headline
The one rule Raga seems to have followed: load it with collaborators. The tape features Seedhe Maut (on two tracks, “Kuch Mat Kar” and “Untitled”), Ikka (“I Get It”), Yungsta, Rawal (“Dhyaan Se”), Panther (“Sab Set Hai”), Fotty Seven (opener “Khurafaat”), Bella (“Part of the Plan”), Yung Sammy (“Wagwan”), Sambata (“Got Lucky”), Siyaahi (“Filam”), Shikriwal (“Super”) and Ab 17 (“Satyanaas”), plus his close crew Akbr, Izer and RAKHT.
Radio and Music lists the release date as 21 September and also names UZIII among the collaborators. The tape is live on Apple Music and JioSaavn.
The Numbers
- Tracks: 21, picked from roughly 40 recorded songs
- Runtime: about 70 minutes
- Gestation: some songs at least four years old; focused work started about 18 months ago
- Studios: Ghaziabad, Mumbai and Paris
- Paris output: around five songs in three days with producer Seysey at a Universal Music Group camp
That last one comes with a bonus plot twist. “I also proposed to my wife there. And I just came back,” Raga told Rolling Stone India, laughing. Productive trip.
The Song That Lost Its Original Feature
The most newsworthy detail is hiding inside “Kuch Mat Kar.” Raga says it began in a session with Delhi origin bassist and producer Hashbass a couple of years ago, alongside tracks that originally featured Pakistani artist Faris Shafi.
After the Pahalgam attack in April 2025 set back India Pakistan ties, including cultural ones, Raga says the cross border collaboration hit a “legal limitation,” and the plan was dropped. “So Universal had to drop that plan and meine bhi dil ke patthar rakh ke kara,” he said, which roughly translates to putting on a brave face and moving on.
He did not want to lose the hook, though. “When we just let go and see things from afar, shit gets clear. I wanted to put it out no matter what,” he said. He sent it to Seedhe Maut, “who can only save this track, I felt,” and they sent back a verse the same day.
This is one of the quieter consequences of the geopolitical freeze: songs that already existed, with artists who had already recorded, simply cannot come out in their original form. Most of those stories never get told. This one did.
Old Raga Versus New Raga
Raga frames the project as a bridge between “Old Raga” and “New Raga.” The hardcore bars are still there, but so are softer, introspective cuts like “Taqleefein,” which he calls “the real Raga” and the verse “closest to me.” He also admits that labels often knocked back experimental ideas because they “wanted the same kind of track over and over again.”
“I was keeping myself in shackles in a way for a long time,” he said. And to Radio and Music: “I’m at a point where I’m not trying to follow a formula, and I don’t think I need to.”
The Delhi Scene Energy
A lot of No Formula sounds like a friendship map of Delhi NCR rap. Raga describes turning up at Rawal’s place “with four beers” and making “Dhyaan Se” that same evening. On “Satyanaas” with Ab 17 and Yungsta, he talks about coming from localities where “sattabazi (betting) comes first and then people think of a career,” adding: “We were almost in that space if it wasn’t for rap that saved us. That’s straight NCR, that song is like a movie.”
He also wanted the tape to showcase his core team. “I wanted to present these guys to the industry, because they have a distinct sound,” he said of Akbr, Izer and RAKHT.
Why It Matters
Indian hip hop has a formula problem, and Raga just named it on the cover. When streaming rewards consistency, artists get boxed into whatever went viral first. A 21 track mixtape stacked with the scene’s heavy hitters is both a creative reset and a very public signal to labels and bookers that the artist wants more range. He says the next full length album “is going to be something else.” That is either a promise or a threat, depending on which Raga you like.
Bengaluru Baath Take
No Formula is less a mixtape and more a mission statement with 21 exhibits. The guest list shows how much respect Raga commands inside Delhi’s scene, and the “Kuch Mat Kar” backstory is a reminder that politics can quietly edit music before we ever hear it. Is 21 tracks too many? Maybe. But after seven years of fans asking for “that Raga sound,” dropping a whole library of other sounds is kind of the point.
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