2018: Who's On Deck: #5 - Raja

Raja - New York City

#5 on our 2018, Who’s On Deck list goes to New York based international Hip-Pop artist, Raja. Raja is truly one of a kind artist as he blends the style Bollywood over Hip-Hop and Pop beats. We always give respect to someone doing something different but Raja gets our utmost respect because on top of him separating himself from the norm, he does it so well with a great attitude. Raja’s sound and music is something we have yet to personally hear from any other artist, so as the year goes on, we are sure his success will continue to flourish.

We have been running into Raja in all the right places throughout 2017. Raja even had his own billboard in the middle on NYC! Whether it was at MTV’s Wild N Out or a SoundCloud concert, Raja is always popping up where the action is. In the midst of all this, a quality that we strongly admire about Raja is his ability to remain humble while gaining so much popularity and success. Raja is most definitely not forgetting where he came from and acknowledges everyone as an equal.

However, Raja's humbleness is not why he made our list, his fire music is. Here is some insight on how Raja’s run in 2017 went and why we feel he is about to be even bigger in 2018. With nearly 50,000 monthly listeners on Spotify it is obvious Raja is turning heads. Raja’s single “Hangover” is currently sitting pretty at over 380,000 streams and shows no signs of slowing down.

The music video for “Hangover” is extremely well shot. If you are familiar with the movie series you may find some similar aspects which where incorporated into the concept. As Raja performs on a beautiful New York City Rooftop the video transitions to clips of the previous night and we can get a feel for what he went through. Aside from the concept matching the song and lyrics perfectly, we can’t get enough of the beat. The sample in the background almost forces your body to move and want to dance.

Right behind “Hangover” is Raja’s latest release "Sangria Sangria” featuring Rhea Raj which recently broke 200,000 streams after only 3 months.

As 2018 begins, Raja has already been putting himself in the right places. Earlier this week, Raja was at Kicks USA in Jamaica, Queens with Hot 97’s DJ Bobby Trends

where he met with fans and gave away some of his exclusive merchandise. Raja also used that time to promote his upcoming single “Island Gyal” featuring industry heavy hitter, Tory Lanez. Raja’s single “Mannequin” featuring New York Legend, Fabolous, is also available on Spotify only a few hundred shy of 30,000 streams so make sure you go check that out !