Your indie-rap group, Das Racist, is known for songs that wittily riff on Taco Bell, Google and the general limitations of American consumerism. Rap is a black art form that originated in the Bronx, so why, as two Wesleyan graduates who met in college, would you think you could rap?

Himanshu Suri (top): Would you prefer your rappers to be uneducated? Victor Vazquez: And would we even be on the page of this publication if we had not gone to Wesleyan?

You jokingly describe yourself as “Puerto Rican cousins” in a song title, when in fact you are neither Puerto Rican nor cousins. What are you actually?

Suri: It’s weird. I’m an Indian-American who is participating in a historically black art form, while acknowledging that the experience of South Asians in America has been a relatively easier one than that of black Americans. Vazquez: My dad is black and my mom is white, and I don’t know if I am neither or both. And we don’t have the time to get into the identity-politics discussion that this would lead to. Suri: Then what are we doing here? Vazquez: We’re bigging up our brand so that we can make more money. Suri: To buy things. I want to start dressing more like a British colonialist in a red coat and maybe lighten my skin with that money.

Earlier this year, you released your first two albums, “Shut Up, Dude” and “Sit Down, Man,” both of them mixtapes available as free downloads. What is the difference between a mixtape and an album?

Suri: It’s a semantic thing. Mixtapes are free. Historically, mixtapes did not feature original productions, although with the rise of the Internet and the fall of the major labels, they have moved toward mostly original production, which makes the term obsolete.

If your albums are available free, how do you make money?

Vazquez: Touring. Most people are making their money on touring, merchandise and licensing. I’ve been paying rent off the shows for a while now. My rent is $290, so it’s not a big deal. It’s five people in a four-bedroom in Bushwick. I keep my stuff at my parents’ house. I like to go home, hug my parents, drink chai with my mom, watch Hindi movies and re-Indianize two days a week before I re-emerge into the filth that is progressive liberal white America in trendy Williamsburg.