Conceiving Indian Rap

Indian Rap may be at a Spermatozoan stage, but new releases indicate that the Desi sub-genre might not get appropriated by Bollywood after all, the way India's 90's indie-pop scene was.

Something exciting has started to shape up in the Indian Rap Scene. Although it has not been entirely accurate until now, to pull the highly popular names of ‘Raftaar’ and ‘Honey Singh’ into a yet evolving entity called, ‘Indian Rap’ owing to the predominance of the ‘pop’ element in their releases; nonetheless, it is undeniable, that what both of them do is nothing else, but rapping. Both the Rappers have quite a lot in common. Both hail from Delhi, with Honey being from Moti Nagar, Western Delhi and Raftaar being from Rohini, Northern Delhi. Besides, both shared a common past, as members of a rap-group called ‘Mafia Mundeer’, which had an amorphous membership, although Raftaar, Honey Singh, Lil Golu & Ikka had become the prominent faces of the group. 

Even while Mafia Mundeer was evolving as a rap group, Honey Singh went on to etch his own trajectory, after getting a music degree from UK. He soon emerged as a massive trend on the popular arena with the release of his ‘3 years in the making’ album titled as ‘International Villager’ (IV), which enjoyed an exponential popularity. Honey Singh had rapped in all the songs from that album, but that album’s ethos was far removed from what even a casual rap listener would call as ‘essential hip hop’. IV was more a variant of Punjabi music, than a Desi version of Hip Hop/Rap. However, this did have the effect of making the casual Indian consumer of music become privy to a foreign art form, which might not have existed for them until Honey Singh’s advent. Honey Singh’s release also made ‘rap’ appear as a commercially feasible fusion-based option to music producers and record labels alike and his arrival helped raise the length of an average rap verse from the previous length of 4 lines, which would generally be nothing else but stereotypical introductory announcements at the start of a song before Bollywood crooning took the musical centre-stage. Of course, pitiful it may still be, but it had now become possible to include 8-12 lines of rap on a song, without the producers fearing about losing out on the Bollywood element in their sounds, which pulled in listeners and movie goers.

Since popular music tends to latch onto emerging trends, it had become only inevitable that RDB would jump on the rap bandwagon, in order to re-invent the music group after the untimely death of one of the group’s member, 'Kuly'. What followed were a slew of tracks with one verse in each of them being occupied by Raftaar, whose flow, if nothing else, was true to the rapper’s name, something which Raftaar is eager to retain and maintain, as evidenced by his latest release where he attempted a chopper flow in the latter part of the verse. Raftaar’s association with RDB paid rich dividends and the number of likes on his Facebook page rose exponentially from 5000 to 9+ lakhs within a span of 20 months.

However, the massive gain in popularity was carefully built on formulaic pop numbers, with the non-rapping parts of the song still being the major focus of effort during production, a fact starkly exposed by the calculated omission of Raftaar’s rap in the RDB collab with T-Pain. Honey Singh’s tracks too were presented more as Punjabi Pop, but with a different masala, so that fans of Punjabi music could get something different from the ennui-engendering run-of-the-mill tracks that had become the norm, something which is still largely prevalent.

However, the recent releases by Honey Singh, ‘Issey Kehtey Hai Hip Hop’ and by Raftaar as a feature on Manj’s track, ‘Swag Mera Desi’ indicate the exciting change that I had referred to in the beginning. Both the rappers, as commercial vocalists, do understand that the conceptual understanding of the genre, ‘Rap’, in the minds of most avid listeners is acutely distinct from what is being peddled by them. Though, in their defense, it has already been hinted that the same is not being done as a malicious campaign to attenuate the lyrical strength of the genre, but more as an economic compulsion to stay financially buoyant while working on an art-form that has a miniscule number of takers in India. In this context, both the releases have been different from the respective rapper’s previous offerings, in the sense that unabashed espousal of a pop sound has taken a backseat to the more prominent rap aesthetic; though pop-rap it may still be, but wholly ‘rap’ in its presentation, nonetheless. The rap verse has become much longer, thus allowing room for considerable maneuverability to Raftaar on Swag Mera Desi and in Honey Singh’s case – 'Issey Kehtey Hai Hip Hop' can be considered as the first big ticket mainstream release of a full length rap song, in a post-Baba Sehgal era.

On a lyrical level, both the songs have been not feted as much as a rapper, anxious about staying true to the rap ethos, would like, and Honey’s offering has already evoked passionate reactions from some of the internet junta. Honey’s error, if at all there would turn out to be one, would be his attempt at appropriating the authority of defining Hip Hop in India. The song’s overarching title – smacks of an arrogance that has not been complimented enough by the song’s lyrical content. Lil Golu’s line – Socho Honey Singh hi agar paida huya na hota/Toh phir music industry ka revolution hi nahi hota – pointed to a proxy, but eager attempt at acquiring the pioneer’s legacy of rap’s resurgence in popular Indian music. However, and rightly so, the lyrics carefully avoided anointing Honey as the harbinger of Rap, because to do so would be blasphemous of an Indian Rap history where Baba Sehgal, the country’s first rapper, holds the position as the original pioneer (Although, Kishore Kumar has done songs with quick vocal deliveries, it should be considered more as a Singer’s variant, than as full blooded ‘rap’) . Thus, we hear Lil Golu referencing only to a ‘revolution in the music industry’, than clearly pointing to any rap based movement triggered by Honey, which is true because Honey’s advent has made Bollywood fuse rap into film music in a more prominent way than before and therefore rap fans getting hyper negative on that bar of the song, is unwarranted. 

The two songs mentioned above and the approach followed in them, are also, in a very subtle manner, reflections of the yet amorphous division lines that are taking shape amongst India’s rap listeners and Indian rapper’s alike. Honey Singh’s provincial strain in his delivery and Raftaar’s ultra urbane chopper flow are representatives of two mindsets that are directly at contrast with each other. Raftaar’s flow has been received appreciatively, for raising the bar of Hindi Rap. Yet, it is difficult for one to not notice the apparent duality, where on one hand, Desi Pride is being upped with sharper flows and delivery in Hindi Rap, while at the same time, it is being done in a manner that has already been fully exploited by western rappers. There is that chopper flow, which has been done to dust already by highly skilled ‘technicians’ from the West; there is a club-themed ambience which is a ‘western’ set in its oft-use by mainstream rappers; then, the earnest attempt at matching upto ‘western’ standards is quite visible in the video's direction, with its methodical but repetitive focus on lights, gloss and costumes; and then there are dance moves which are entirely western in essence. All in all, Raftaar’s video is nothing but a western rap song with the sole difference of it’s vocal content being in Hindi; ironically corroborated by the line when Raftaar signs off with, ‘Flow mera international par swag mera desi hai.’ Even the word, ‘Swag’ has nothing to do with being Desi, because it has an apt, but still unused, culturally similar word – ‘Tashan’. It is here that Honey Singh’s track takes an upper hand for me, because Honey Singh’s provincial strain in his delivery is more closer to home than Raftaar’s arduous attempts at chopping through a beat. In the songs from his debut offering, Honey's flow was tight and sonically, it was culturally neutral. But since ‘Blue Eyes’, his delivery has acquired a relaxed provinciality that can be called ‘Desi’ in its sonic essence. Whether it had been a calculated move or the evolution of Honey’s delivery, his present style speaks volumes of his profuse comfort with himself and his rap. Overt and over-enthusiastic attempts at matching upto the imagined ‘western’ standards are completely absent in his video and therefore we see ‘rent-worthy’ cars being replaced by a ‘tractor’. Instead of B-Boys, there are ‘akhada’ wrestlers and whatever ‘essentially’ western that was adopted can be categorized as images of a universal urbanity.

For all that we may know,  with the release of these two songs, Indian Rap might just have been conceived on the mainstream and on a scale that will impart Indian Rap it's own distinctive identity. Yes, there are scores of Indian Rappers out there who are doing their drill, but at almost invisible levels. But the spotlight, which these two rappers have managed to bring onto Indian Rap, has so far been unparalleled.