"Can Two Different Songs in the Same EP Take 48 Hours and Six Months?" KhoslaRaghu Agree!

School friends turned musical partners, Rishabh Raghuvanshi and Sanchit Khosla, have been creating music together for six years as the duo KhoslaRaghu. Their journey from jamming sessions during their Delhi University days to releasing EPs showcases a refreshing approach to the indie music scene—one that refuses to be bound by genre or conventional formulas.

Their story begins in a boarding school in Rajasthan back in 2011, before they coincidentally ended up at a University in Delhi together. "That's when Sanchit and I got time to do music together, jam around. We started staying at each other's place, making music together," Rishabh recalls. The COVID pandemic provided the catalyst for taking their passion to the next level. "During the lockdown, we started doing these little songwriting sessions, and that's how we thought, 'OK, why not make a project out of it?'" says Rishabh.

What makes KhoslaRaghu stand out is their fluid approach to musical genres. "We are not really genre specific," Rishabh emphasises. "Both of us are very open about different inspirations, different tastes of music, and cultures." When asked about navigating between different genres, the answer is simple: "It's purely instinct," the duo specified. "I think for us, it would be harder to stick to one genre specifically. We're not bound to any one particular sound."

This translates to their creative rundown as well, where their collaborative process is refreshingly straightforward. "Usually, one of us shares some ideas with each other, and then if the other person likes it, we might expand on it," Sanchit explains. "Sometimes Rishabh would write something and then come to me, and then I would add my own taste to it. Or it can be the other way around." As for the timeline of creating songs, it varies dramatically. Sometimes it can take as long as a couple of months, and sometimes it's a couple of hours for the musician duo.

One of the prime examples of putting this approach into practice is their recent EP 'Aawara. After releasing a collection of heartbreak songs in the past, they decided to try something completely different. "We were getting typecast that 'these guys only make sad music,'" Sanchit explains. "That's why we decided to make something completely opposite, fun, quirky—not just one song, but a collection so that we can put this out and say that we are not genre bound."

The five songs in the EP tell a connected story about someone without direction in love, from "Phir Kho Gaya" about constantly falling in love, to "Dil Behra" exploring uncertainty, "Barbadi" about persistent hope, and finally "Tanha" and "Na Kabil" which conclude with introspection and surrender. While "Dil Behra" took less than 48 hours, Barbadi took almost six months to complete. But, a higher time doesn't state a music release’s success, or a lower turnaround time doesn’t mean it will not work well. In 5 years of musical journey together, KhoslaRaghu still haven’t figured out the right way for a song or track to work. "We don't know what works. Even after releasing so many songs, we still don't know what works," admits Sanchit. This approach allows them to embrace both success and failure with equal grace. "If none of the songs worked, for us it'll be OK," the artist says. "The best way possible is to do what you want to do. If it clicks, it clicks. If it doesn't, you move on."

The duo has learned that audience reception can be surprising. One of their biggest hits came from humble beginnings: "We recorded a song titled 'Unke Bina' in our bedroom, the raw version, and it happens to be one of our top 5 songs ever streamed on any platform," Rishabh reveals. Their breakout song, "Dooriyan," was one they were least confident about. "Out of 10 songs, Duria was one song that we knew would not work," Sanchit admits. But when played for a label, it connected immediately, proving once again that authentic expression often resonates more deeply than calculated formulas. This has been the very essence of the duo to not bind music to any boundaries and create what makes their heart happy.