Heems

A rapper, visual artist, record label owner, Punjabi-American, and native New Yorker, Himanshu "Heems" Suri launched his solo career while still a member of his old crew, Das Racist. Heems formed the alternative hip-hop group with some friends in 2008, the same year that he created the Greedhead Music label to release their music. Their defining moment came toward the end of the year as the single “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” went from quirky indie number to major hit in no time. The single also hung like an albatross around Das Racist’s neck, and after multiple mixtapes and the official 2011 album Relax, the assumption that they were a “novelty” act became just one of the reasons for their 2013 breakup. Heems had already dabbled with a solo career and released his debut mixtape, Nehru Jackets, through Greedhead in early 2012. A second mixtape, Wild Water Kingdom, landed in late 2012. After Das Racist split, Heems headed to Bombay and began work on his official debut solo effort. The album was released in in 2015 and coincided with an exhibition of the rapper’s artwork at the Aicon Gallery in New York City. Both the LP and the exhibition shared the same title, Eat Pray Thug. ~ David Jeffries