At a time when much of India’s music video landscape is becoming increasingly polished and algorithm-driven, MONTAGE has emerged as one of the more distinct visual voices working within the country’s independent hip hop scene.
Founded by filmmaker and editor Vidhu Kota, the Delhi-based production company has quietly built a reputation for emotionally raw, texture-heavy visuals that sit somewhere between narrative cinema, documentary filmmaking, and internet ephemera.
Over the last year, MONTAGE has collaborated with artists including Yungsta, Raga, faizal, and Hardbone Boy, while also working alongside Mass Appeal India on visuals tied to the recent collaborative project Boy Cried Wolf by Boyblanck and wolf.cryman.
The visuals surrounding Boy Cried Wolf leaned into a fragmented, dreamlike visual language that felt intentionally unstable and emotionally exposed. Instead of glossy performance setups or traditional rap video aesthetics, the films moved through blurry late-night spaces, digital textures, handheld intimacy, harsh flash photography, grain, silence, and emotionally detached characters drifting through empty environments. The work often felt less like a commercial music video and more like watching memories decay in real time.
Particularly on “Q” and “EARTH DAY,” the visual world built by MONTAGE mirrors the emotional tone of the music itself- detached but vulnerable, romantic but emotionally numb, internet-native while still deeply human.
Rather than approaching hip hop visuals through spectacle alone, MONTAGE’s work focuses heavily on atmosphere, negative space, awkward pauses, texture, and realism. Many of the studio’s projects are shot on lean crews using practical locations and available environments, giving the films a tactile quality that feels increasingly rare within commercial music video production.
“Most of the artists we work with are building worlds from scratch,” says Kota. “We never wanted the visuals to feel over-designed or disconnected from the music. Even when things get surreal, they should still feel lived in.”
Originally from India, Kota spent several years in New York studying and working in film before returning to Delhi to launch MONTAGE as an independent studio focused on music, fashion, youth culture, and narrative filmmaking.
Alongside music videos and commercial work, MONTAGE has also begun building creative community initiatives through CALL SHEET, an independent screening and networking platform bringing together filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists across Delhi NCR.
As India’s underground music scene continues evolving beyond traditional industry structures, MONTAGE is quickly becoming one of the studios helping define what that movement looks like visually.
Website: montagevault.com
Instagram: @montagevault
Founder: @vidhukota
© 2026, Nimra Khan. All rights reserved.
