Cartel Madras Chart a New Path on "EVIDENT 2 ME"
The Calgary rap duo's first new music in four years serves as both a reintroduction and a roadmap for what's to come.
by Glenn Alderson
Photos by Michaela Neuman
- Published on
Cartel Madras have spent the last four years tearing down and rebuilding the foundations of their carefully curated music project entirely. Since releasing The Serpent & The Tiger in 2021, sisters Contra and Eboshi have certainly kept busy, but the shape of what they were building has remained largely unknown, perhaps even to them.
Today, however, that picture begins to sharpen with the premiere of “EVIDENT 2 ME,” the rap duo’s first new single in four years and the opening chapter in a rollout that will ultimately lead to their next full-length album in 2027.
Blending militant rap, jungle rhythms, industrial textures, and cinematic electronics, the track feels both familiar and transformed. The edges are sharper and the scope is wider. More than anything, it sounds like two artists who took the time to figure out exactly what they wanted to say before saying it.
The accompanying video offers the first glimpse into that vision. Shot across Alberta’s sprawling prairie landscapes, open highways, and industrial corridors, it follows Cartel Madras through a world defined by movement, pursuit, and expansion. But that’s only part of the story. Elsewhere in the broader visual rollout, the duo enter what they’re calling “Astrum Mode”—a stranger, more luxurious realm of furs, silks, and snowy landscapes that feels, in their words, like “some weird Cowboy Bebop episode.”
It’s a sleek and on brand introduction to a project that seems equally interested in mythology and infrastructure, prairie realism and science fiction, and one that hints at a much larger story still waiting to unfold.
Ahead of the premiere, RANGE caught up with Cartel Madras to discuss rebuilding the project, resisting trends, and inviting listeners into the next phase of their evolution.
“EVIDENT 2 ME” is being positioned as a manifesto for a new era of Cartel Madras. What needed to happen before you were ready to return?
Contra: I think artists worth their salt need to take audacious, intense, personal and creative side quests to actually grow. We needed to investigate ourselves, travel, live new lives, witness a changing world and react to it through our practice with a level of discernment and emotional honesty. You have to shed your skin, like a snake, to grow and survive. Our era feels intensely disillusioned and corrupted—we needed time to understand how to enter back into it with the proper spirit.
You’ve described this new chapter as being “indifferent towards trend.” What does that mean to Cartel Madras in 2026?
Contra: Being indifferent to trends doesn’t mean being disconnected from culture. It means not allowing the market to dictate our imagination and taste. We don’t start by asking what people want or what’s working, we start by asking what excites us, what feels emotionally true, and what is the world we want to build.
Eboshi: Seeing how much the industry has changed, how much consumption has fallen prey to trend, and witnessing brilliant art survive in spite of it all has influenced us to remain committed to doing it our way.
The music video feels like an important extension of the song’s world. What are we seeing in the video for “EVIDENT 2 ME”?
Contra: Think of this video as the beginning of a story. We’re headed somewhere, though we’re not entirely sure where yet. Throughout the visual language of this rollout we’re watched by this large hand—a symbol of surveillance, control, fate, perhaps even the audience itself.
With EVIDENT 2 ME, we’re opening a new path for Cartel Madras and following a trail deeper into it.
For the visual language of this song, we intentionally shot across two seasons. In the music video you see vast Alberta landscapes, open roads, industrial infrastructure, and a car tearing through the prairies. There is a feeling of movement, pursuit, and expansion.
We wanted to jump between different ecosystems and visual registers, hinting at the shapeshifting nature of both the song and the larger project. One moment feels grounded in the prairies, almost documentary style, the next feels mythological and slightly uncanny.
Since your last project, what experiences have most influenced the artists you’ve become today?
Eboshi: Travelling both alone and together has coloured our writing. In many ways art comes from every experience that reshapes how you interact with the world.
Feeling lost in a moment; surrendering completely to a bunker party, immersing yourself in the infinite beauty of a mountainside, a perfect meal, a shining moment, a movie, a conversation—these are the things that remain and inspire.
What can listeners expect from the larger body of work that “EVIDENT 2 ME” is introducing?
Contra: Something that feels alive and difficult to predict.
Eboshi: With EVIDENT 2 ME we provide something of an instruction manual on how to enter the new Cartel Madras realm, how we have learned to exist and survive in this world, and how we expect to receive our new compatriots.
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