Indian hip hop

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Indian hip hop is a genre of popular music developed in India. Desi hip hop is a term given by Bohemia for music and culture which combines the influences of hip hop and the Indian subcontinent; the term desi referring to the South Asian diaspora. The term has also come to be used as an alternative for rap music and even pop music which involves rappers of South Asian origins.

Contents

Overview

Apache Indian, UK artist of Indian origin, was the earliest to make an impact on the UK charts with a series of hits during the 90s. [1] This also paralleled the rise of Asian Underground in the UK. [2] The inflow of hip hop into India is also attributed to certain clubs and DJs in New Delhi in the 90s. [3]

Baba Sehgal introduced a caricaturist version of Hindi rap in the nineties with his albums. [4] [5] In 1992, his album Thanda Thanda Pani sold 100,000 copies in three and a half months and brought rap music to the Indian club scene. [6]

In the 2000s the Hip hop scene remained limited largely to the underground, with a very niche loyal audience. [7] Hip-hop culture, including graffiti and b-boying started seeping into the club scene and street culture of big cities like Delhi and Mumbai. [8]

One of the early moments of Indian hip hop was the Bengali-language underground film Gandu which narrated a story of a rapper and had a soundtrack which mixed rap with alternative rock. [2] Besides Bollywood and commercial rap music, the underground hip-hop scene started shaping. Many emerging rappers, crews started to create a buzz in the underground hip-hop scene. Artists such as Roll Rida, Noel Sean & groups such as Machas With Attitude, Hiphop Tamizha and Street Academics pioneered respective vernacular rap music scenes.

Indian hip hop has become increasingly popular in India's biggest cities with big names like 'KR$NA' who has been picked up by talent management agencies like OML [9] who now have music videos with millions of views on YouTube. [10] [11] [12] [13]

Director Zoya Akhtar was very impressed and fascinated after listening to "Aafat!" and "Mere Gully Mein". She wanted to portray the stories of both these young rappers and consequently approached DIVINE & Naezy. Akhtar pitched the idea of making a Bollywood movie based on their lives. Both DIVINE and Naezy left a huge impact on the Indian hip hop scene by bringing a large amount of audience.

Due to the exposure through Bollywood, rap became a household term and an increased production of rap music was observed, especially in the Punjabi music industry. [14] There is an ongoing debate among the hip-hop community about the contribution of Honey Singh to the genre. While some artists including Badshah, [15] Ikka, [16] Manj Musik and Bohemia [17] have acknowledged his contribution to the industry, others such as Raftaar [17] and Imran Khan [18] have openly denied it. There is also a negative sentiment among some followers of hip-hop culture in India regarding the recent commercialization of the genre. [19] [20] However, this commercialisation has also led to expansion of the underground scene, with independent artists building a name in Indian hip hop. Because of this, the future of hip-hop in India is generally perceived to be positive. [19] [21] There are many rappers in India, rapping in different languages such as Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Odia, Bhojpuri, Khasi etc.

Telugu hip hop became notable since the early 2000s when artists such as Smita started hip hop culture in the Telugu language. "Hai Rabba" and "Masaka Masaka" are her best selling albums which received wide acclaim, especially in the Indian sub-continent. [22] Artists such as Raja Kumari, [23] Roll Rida, Noel Sean and Manisha Eerabathini started the trend in the new-age Telugu hip hop by including rap. [24] With the rise of its popularity, these artists started working in Telugu cinema since the late 2010s. [25] [26]

Tamil hip hop is gaining popularity in India. Many other languages like Kannada and Marathi are also becoming popular among the masses in India. [27] [28]

Protest hip hop

YoungProzpekt (now KR$NA) released "Kaisa Mera Desh" in 2010. The track was an anti-corruption anthem against the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and the statement of Indian development in particular. [29] It earned a #2 ranking as one of the most watched music videos in India overnight following its release. [30]

Protest hip hop came into limelight again after mass protest started all over India against the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019. Since the crackdown in JMI, AMU and JNU, and the 2020 Delhi riots several rappers from all over the country have joined the cause with their own sonic protest. Rappers such as Rapper Shaz gained recognition for their protest songs alongside Santhanam Srinivasan Iyer (known as EPR). [31] [32] [33]

Diss Hip Hop

Disses became particularly popular and played a significant role in shaping Indian hip-hop post-2018. [2]

Related Research Articles

Asian underground is a term associated with various British Asian and South Asian Canadian musicians who blend elements of Western underground dance music and the traditional Asian music of their home countries in South Asia. The sound has roots in the South Asian Diaspora, and many notable musicians within the genre are immigrants or children of immigrants. The first well-known mention was the compilation album Anokha - Soundz of the Asian Underground released in 1997 and masterminded by Talvin Singh and Sweety Kapoor. It is not a strict musical genre per se, since the specific sounds can vary wildly.

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Diljit Dosanjh is an Indian singer, songwriter, actor, film producer and television personality. He works in Punjabi Music and subsequently in Punjabi and Hindi cinema. Dosanjh entered Social 50 chart by Billboard in 2020. He is featured in various music charts including Canadian Albums Chart, UK Asian chart by Official Charts Company and New Zealand Hot Singles. His movies, including Jatt & Juliet 2, Punjab 1984, Sajjan Singh Rangroot and Honsla Rakh are among the highest grossing Punjabi films in history.

Machas With Attitude (MWA) was a hip hop trio with members from Bangalore and Chennai, India. Formed on 14 June 2008, it consisted of Brodha V, Smokey and Bigg Nikk. MWA took influences from their various backgrounds, and although their songs were primarily in English, they usually featured lyrics in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. The group's name was inspired by the American rapper group N.W.A.

Desi hip hop is a term for music and culture which combines the influences of hip hop and the Indian subcontinent; the term desi referring to the South Asian diaspora. The term has also come to be used as an alternative for rap music and even pop music which involves rappers of South Asian origins.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Badshah (rapper)</span> Indian rapper and singer (born 1985)

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Kuwar Virk is an Indian music director, singer, rapper, and songwriter from Delhi, India. He made his debut as a rap artist in the year 2010 as D-Rap Blaster. His first commercial track was Nakhra featuring Mika Singh, Kaptan Laddi which was released in 2014. He made a major entry in Bollywood as a singer with song "Malamaal" from movie Housefull 3.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brodha V</span> Indian rapper (born 1990)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Divine (rapper)</span> Indian rapper (born 1990)

Vivian Wilson da Silva Fernandes, known professionally as Divine, is an Indian rapper of Goan descent. Born and raised in Andheri, Mumbai, Divine started gaining popularity after the release of his single "Yeh Mera Bombay" in 2013. He broke through with the release of "Mere Gully Mein" in 2019, which featured fellow Mumbai-based rapper Naezy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KRSNA (rapper)</span> Indian rapper

Krishna Kaul, known mononymously as Krishna is an Indian rapper. He was one of the earliest rappers to emerge in the Indian hip hop scene in the mid-2000s under the stage name Prozpekt. He was briefly featured in the 2019 Bollywood film Gully Boy as himself. He is widely acknowledged within the Desi Hip Hop community for pioneering a lyrical revolution in the genre, infusing a new wave of poetic depth and lyrical complexity into hip hop's narrative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naezy</span> Indian rapper (born 1993)

Naved Shaikh, better known by his stage name Naezy, is an Indian rapper from Mumbai, Maharashtra, who first broke into mainstream rap with the song "Mere Gully Mein" featuring fellow rapper DIVINE. A fictional version of his character has been portrayed by Ranveer Singh in the Zoya Akhtar-directed 2019 musical film Gully Boy. He made his film debut with the hit song "Birju" from the 2015 film Hey Bro, the music video for which featured celebrated Bollywood actors Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgn, as well as choreographer Prabhu Deva, with the film's lead actor Ganesh Acharya.

<i>Gully Boy</i> (soundtrack) Soundtrack album for the 2019 Gully Boy film

Gully Boy is the soundtrack album for the 2019 film of the same name directed by Zoya Akhtar. The soundtrack includes work by DIVINE, Naezy, Sez on the Beat, Rishi Rich, Dub Sharma, Jasleen Royal, Ace, Ishq Bector, MC Altaf, MC TodFod, 100RBH, Maharya, Noxious D, Viveick Rajagopalan, and others.

References

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  2. 1 2 3 Sarkar, Debarun (2023-05-19). "'Azadi's political until you're pressing play': Capitalist realism, hip-hop, and platform affordances". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 29 (6): 1437–1452. doi:10.1177/13548565231174598. ISSN   1354-8565. S2CID   258818888.
  3. ↑ Dattatreyan, Ethiraj Gabriel (2020). The globally familiar: digital hip hop, masculinity, and urban space in Delhi. Durham: Duke University press. ISBN   978-1-4780-1272-6.
  4. ↑ "Baba unplugged". The Hindu .
  5. ↑ Cardozo, Elliott (2021). "Hip hop goes to b-town: bollywood's assimilation of the underground aesthetic". SRFTI Take One. 2 (1): 26–43.
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  7. ↑ Mehrotra, Palash (12 August 2012). "Indian rap scene: A revolt that will not get televised". India Today. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  8. ↑ Kappal, Bhanuj (12 October 2013). "Inside Mumbai's Burgeoning Hip-Hop Scene". The Sunday Guardian. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  9. ↑ Chakrabarti, Samrat (2015-12-13). "Hip Hop on the Central Line". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 2017-09-14.
  10. ↑ "सृजनाची फॅक्टरी : 'द हिप हॉप मूव्हमेंट' एक आगळीवेगळी चळवळ". Loksatta (in Marathi). Retrieved 2022-02-15.
  11. ↑ "ठाण्यात हिपहॉप हुर्रे!". Maharashtra Times (in Marathi). Retrieved 2022-02-15.
  12. ↑ rafdhh (2013-12-03). "Thane Hip Hop Comes To Life!". Desi Hip Hop. Retrieved 2022-02-15.
  13. ↑ Sharmila Ganesan Ram (Dec 22, 2014). "City gets jiggy as 2-day hip-hop festival vows residents | Thane News - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2022-02-15.
  14. ↑ "From Bambi Bains to Aman Sandhu: Punjabi musicians talk about their journey". The Times of India. 24 June 2015. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  15. ↑ Jones, Raaj. "BADSHAH INTERVIEW @104.8 OYE FM BY RAAJ JONES". Youtube. Oye 104.8 FM. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  16. ↑ Jones, Raaj. "IKKA SINGH RARE INTERVIEW (TALKING ABOUT HIS MUSIC & YO YO HONEY SINGH @104.8 OYE FM BY RAAJ JONES". Youtube. Oye 104.8 FM. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  17. 1 2 Batra, Ruhi (15 March 2015). "Honey Singh versus the bitter rest". The Times of India. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  18. ↑ "Imran Khan says "I don't even know who Honey Singh is". Satisfya". Youtube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  19. 1 2 Omulo, Bob (19 September 2014). "How India is Taking to Hip Hop". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  20. ↑ "Rap is rebel music worldwide, here it's 'pop rap': Badshah". Hindustan Times. 29 July 2015. Archived from the original on July 30, 2015. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  21. ↑ Mahmood, Rafay (26 January 2012). "Bohemia: More than just forties and shorties". The Express Tribune. Tribune.com.pk. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  22. ↑ "Singer Smita turns nostalgic; remembers her first song with MM Keeravani - Times of India". The Times of India. June 2019. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
  23. ↑ "'My brand of hip hop is a bridge between a traditional Telugu home and the American culture' - Times of India". The Times of India. 6 August 2019. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
  24. ↑ "Asura's Telugu rap album hits the right notes". The New Indian Express. 29 August 2020. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
  25. ↑ mojumder, oishani (2019-02-27). "The rise of Telugu rap". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
  26. ↑ Pasha, Gouse. "11 Rap Songs In Telugu That You Must Listen To Right Now!". Chai Bisket. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
  27. ↑ "It's a rap! New single goes viral on day one". The New Indian Express. 28 November 2019. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  28. ↑ Tagat, Anurag (2019-06-07). "Can't stop, won't stop: the rise of Tamil rap". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  29. ↑ "'Yeh Kaisa Mera Desh: - Young Prozpekt's Rant against the Commonwealth Games". www.mensxp.com. 2010-10-06. Retrieved 2021-03-02.
  30. ↑ "Hip hop hustle". India Today. Retrieved 2021-03-02.
  31. ↑ "Rapper EPR's Song About Farmer Suicides Is Powerful Beyond Belief". The Quint. 2019-10-23. Retrieved 2020-06-04.
  32. ↑ "Voice Of The People: Protest Music In India". www.thewildcity.com. Retrieved 2020-05-03.
  33. ↑ Majumdar, Meghna (2019-12-23). "How art on social media became the face of anti-CAA protests". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 2020-05-03.
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