New Delhi: In Modi’s India, the edgy, angry and counter-culture rap and hip-hop music is changing. New rappers of Hindu pride and nationalism are rising. Anubhav Shukla aka Panther from Uttar Pradesh made his name on MTV Hustle with Vande Mataram in 2022. But his style was the real surprise. He belted it out in a fast-paced bombastic rap glorifying Sanskrit, the Vedic period, and lauding the various empires of the Guptas and the Rajputs, which to him define India. It’s his tribute to the motherland.
The same year, Tanishq Singh aka Paradox from New Delhi, rapped an ode to Shiva in Babam Bam.
Hip-hop may have emerged from the urban decay in the South Bronx region of New York City, but it has spread to Lakhimpur, Kharagpur, Faridabad, Chandigarh, Mumbai and Delhi. In the first wave, Indian rappers told gritty stories of the poor, injustice and the dark underground. Today, confrontation and conflict is giving way to celebration. Panther and Paradox are part of a small but growing band of performers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other parts of north India, who grew up on Bollywood movies, but imbibe Modi’s Hindu nationalism. They flex their Hindu identity with pride, and rap about Hanuman and Shiva, Kashmiri Pandits and various Indian dynasties. Some wear kurtas, others sport tikkas, bomber jackets and sunglasses with a flash of orange.
“I am a proud Sanatani,” said Panther, who embraces his Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s development model. “I have seen a big shift in the development of my state under Yogi Adityanath. The nation is in good hands, and is climbing towards a bright future.”
His song UP Se, reflects the true good and bad of Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh. He sings about the problem of gun violence, but also about how women continue to be safe in the state. “Through my music, I want the audience to see my life through my eyes. I represent my state in hip-hop,” he said.
“Atankwadion ki fat-ti hai itni ki UP pe aaj tak kiya nahi hamla (terrorists are so terrified of UP that they could never attack it),” he sang.
Much like how Divine in Mumbai is about youth and angst, and Yo Yo Honey Singh in Punjab embodies the high life of money and parties, this new breed of rappers too identify with their work. But the topics are different, and people are paying attention to what they have to say.
“I’m Muslim but love this song and jai shree ram,” read one comment on Paradox’s Babam Bam video on YouTube, which had received 22 million views, at the time of publishing this report.
Music producers say it’s a natural evolution given that hip-hop and rap is a reflection of what is going on in society. “And lately, the country has become more polarised,” said Shaashwat Pande, a singer and music producer, who has produced music on reality shows like MTV Hustle and The Voice among others.
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Mix of devotion and flexing
At 24, Rahul Kumar Das aka Shloka from Kharagpur in Darbhanga, Bihar, sees himself as the pioneer of this nationalistic, patriotic avatar of hip-hop. He calls it ‘flex rap’, where lyrics are intentionally boastful, but tinged with philosophical learnings and devotion to gods.
“When rap started in India, it was strongly influenced by the values of the Left. After some of my work, other rappers have come in who have the courage to start talking about the Right, like me,” said Shloka.
He does not always wear a baggy t-shirt or trendy sneakers when performing on stage but prefers long kurtas, usually red or yellow, with Hindi letters printed on them. His music video Dheem Dheem Taam, features him dressed in a pandit-like attire, showing off his tripundra — three yellow lines on his forehead.
Though he is a commerce graduate, Shloka was particularly drawn to Hindi literature in college. He enjoyed wordplay, writing poetry, and telling stories, right around the time when an Indianised form of hip-hop started catching up. It was in 2015 when he was studying at Lalit Narayan Mithila University in Darbhanga that Shloka realised he could bring his proficiency in Hindi and Sanskrit into rap music.
By 2016, he was rapping at events and had even joined a hip-hop crew in Bihar. But getting selected for MTV Hustle brought him fame. During the semi-finals of the first season in 2019, Shloka’s final performance was a song he wrote, Antim Shloka Geet. “Devanagari mein rap karoon, mera rap nahi jaise ved hai,” he sang, emphasising his Hindi heartland roots. In another song, Dheem Dheem Taam, he draws from the Shiv tandav strota and straddles tradition and modernity with ease. Last year, Shloka released his first extended play or EP, Panchtatva, a “fusion of devotion and flexing” inspired by the Sanskrit word that indicates the five elements the Earth is made of.
Following Shloka’s rise to fame, rapper Shagun Sharma or Shlovji from Uttarakhand also emerged in this space. He raps in a mix of Hindi and Sanskrit, much to the delight of his fans. In one of his songs, Umar Meri 26, he raps in perfect Hindi about himself. “Bhakti meri Prahalad si, mera krodh jaise Mahadev ka (My devotion is similar to that of Prahalad, my anger is like that of Shiva)”. One YouTube user called him a ‘Hindustani hustler.’
Even mainstream performers sometimes bring a bit of devotion to God into their music. In April this year, popular Punjabi singer Milind Gaba’s rendition of a bhajan (devotional song) Shree Ram Janaki, went viral on social media. Describing it as his “inner calling”, Gaba told ThePrint that singing the bhajan was a random decision he made on stage, and was not pre-planned. He too was surprised at how well the audience reacted.
Weeks after, during his performances at weddings, audience members encouraged him to sing it again. The video of his song also made rounds on various WhatsApp groups of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
This audience for contemporary devotional music is what inspired five men to band together and call themselves Siksharthakam, a YouTube channel that imparts Vedic knowledge through different genres of music including hip-hop. All around 30, Deepak jaiswal, Sandeep Singh, Eshan Sharma, Saad Kapoour and Srijan Rishi met during Bhagavad Gita classes in New Delhi’s Iskcon Temple. Three of them are software engineers, one is preparing for the Indian civil services and another is studying music. Since the band started making videos in 2018, it has released two rap songs to “correct” misconceptions about Vedic culture and has nearly four lakh subscribers on YouTube.
In their first song Sanatani, lead rapper Saad Kapoour, in his raspy voice, sings about bringing back the “lost birds” who have given up their customs and traditions and enabling them to understand the true glory of one’s culture.
“Even Lord Krishna says that one should use their art and talent for the welfare of society. Rap is more than just curse words. We want to prove that it can be used to promote the values of one’s culture,” said Deepak Jaiswal, one of the members of the group.
Siksharthakam’s music takes a political turn too. Their second release, Awaaz, is dedicated to the Kashmiri Hindus and their exodus from the valley in 1990.
“Hitler wasn’t the only one who did genocide. There were similar wrongdoings in our own country. It’s a page from history that nobody remembers. We don’t want to blame any community, we simply want to make people aware of the plight of those suffering,” said Jaiswal. The music video was shared online by Vivek Agnihotri, the director of the controversial film The Kashmir Files (2022), the group claims.
Meanwhile, Panther’s work doesn’t have much to do with religion, but he has plenty to say about the nation and its history.
“History is not just the Mughals. Our books are all wrong, and there are a whole host of dynasties. People should be learning about it,” he said. Where once, a generation of youth would blindly ape the West, people like him are embracing their Indianness.
Clad in an orange bomber jacket, Panther strode onto the stage of MTV Hustle last year and rapped his heart out: “Sanskrit mein sanskriti janmi thi, sanatano ki dharti thi, (In Sanskrit, our culture was born. Sanatan was the religion of the land),” he belted out.
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Invoking Kaali, rejecting labels
At the same time, hip-hop and rap in India is also reflecting real-world issues like dowry, caste discrimination, and bigotry. It’s going back to the protest poetry roots, with proponents like EPR Iyer rapping about farmer suicides and beheadings.
A tribute to the brave soldiers of our motherland! Jai Hind 🇮🇳@official_dgar @easterncomd @mtvhustle @adgpi #badluramkabadan pic.twitter.com/EB8hE6p04r
— epr iyer (@IyerEpr) November 8, 2022
“We routinely hear about mob lynching, caste issues and all kinds of intolerance today. Some artists are slowly shifting their gaze towards these particular issues, and that is their way of being responsible citizens,” said Pande.
EPR Iyer, a rapper from Kolkata, went viral for his song Religious Extremism, which condemns the beheading of Kanhaiya Lal, a Hindu tailor in Udaipur, by two Muslims.
Most of his music is a commentary on social issues. In his song Bik Gayi Hai Gormint, he raps about a bridge collapse in Kolkata, molestation cases and ATM frauds in his state. He even samples Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s voice in the song.
As a former student of journalism from Kolkata University, EPR’s music reflects his style of asking questions. Religious Extremism invited a wave of supporters, some people even called him a ‘Hindu sher’ on social media. But the rapper doesn’t want these labels or associations.
“I just want my music to make sense. I am not inclined towards any political party. I am just a concerned citizen of this nation. My music gives me the courage to call a spade a spade,” he said.
Ekla Cholo Re, another famous song by EPR, talks about farmers’ suicides in the country and it was widely shared by Congress and Aam Aadmi Party leaders. But the artist is not happy about it.
“This is the death of democracy”
“They are using my music to protect their own agendas, and it is happening on both ends. A picture of me was also taken by Right wing groups and shared online for some of my music. This is the death of democracy,” he said.
Shloka, too, was surprised when about three years ago, his song Ho Raha Jo Bhi Yahan Hone Do, was shared by political strategist Prashant Kishor on his Facebook page, he said.
“I don’t want to take any sides, and am not affiliated with anybody politically. I simply want to take inspiration from our own culture and history,” he said.
From Faridabad, Agrita Dhawan aka Agsy lends her voice to women’s rights. She was inspired by Hannah Montana and Nicki Minaj in her formative years, and rapped in English about “boy problems” in her college years. But she shifted to Hindi given its wider appeal. As a Hindi rapper, she has changed her style and subject. Drugs and child abuse are just some of the issues she raps about.
“I would have stuck to singing purely pop bangers if I only wanted to be famous. I want to make people think with my music. If you have a voice, you have to use it,” said Agsy.
Inspired by the ferocity of Kaali, her song Aurat makes references to the Hindu goddess, and talks about the upliftment of women. “Every female has a Kaali inside of them,” she said.
Her song Stop Rape talks about the plight of female rape victims in India. “The voice of every girl,” one YouTube user lauded Agsy’s song in the video’s comment section.
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It doesn’t sell
But without the machinery of Bollywood and its stars, independent music rarely achieves mass appeal in India. A flash of virality keeps the artists’ hope alive and brings them a measure of fame, but doesn’t pay the bills. According to artists and producers, there is no replay value to their music.
“There may be some hits, but not many people are listening. Artists feel obligated to give the masses the kind of rap they want, the one that talks of booze, cars and women. Which is why not many put it out,” said Pande.
Panther, too, knows that his song Vande Mataram, won’t be consumed en masse, which is why he writes other kinds of music too like heartbreak songs or about his journey as a musician.
“The audience will remember me for a moment when they hear this song, but they will never actually listen to it. I’ll have to write songs about mainstream topics if I want listenership,” he said.
As a sole earner in a family of four, Shloka worries that his career suffers because of what he writes about. “I have not received a lot of support for this genre. It does not get shared much by senior rappers. They feel it won’t work with their audience,” he said.
Many see it as their calling; silence would kill the muse. Shloka is currently working on a song dedicated to Radha-Krishna Raas Leela (dance of passion associated with Hindu god Krishna), and EPR is not going to change his content.
“I like writing about politics even though it won’t fetch me a Rolls Royce,” said EPR.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)