B attle Rap has been an integral part of hip-hop since the genre’s early years but only recently has it found ground with the Indian audience.
Actor Riz Ahmed, who started his rap career a decade ago, brought battle rap into the limelight with ‘Post 9/11 Blues’. The lyrics speak about the life of a Muslim in the west after the twin towers were brought down. Viewers are revisiting his battles with Whashisface and Skilla Mic on YouTube in the light of this success.
Listeners in India are also beginning to participate in Battle Rap. Although this has been a little late there are plenty.
Playwright Dharmakirti Sumant, who found the rap battles on Youtube a couple of years ago, says, “I watch Battle Rap because there is no single art form that is based entirely on the emotions of humiliation, insult, humour and anger.
“Because of its political incorrectness, politically incorrect truth is spoken many times. Battle Rap is a garbage dump of language where you find vocabulary from Lacan to an entire genre which is called Gun Bars.”
Right now, India boasts of only one Battle Rap artiste: Young Dirrt also known as MC ZING F.DIRRT. The Manipur-born, Bengaluru-based artiste, whose real name is Zing Chongtham, cites his influences as hip-hop greats such as Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G, Big L, WU TANG, EMINEM, KRS 1, and modern “new-school” rappers including J.cole, Kendrick Lamar among others. He was the winner of the VH1 Rap Battles in 2011, and has since then opened for various artistes including Justin Timberlake.
In recent times, the popularity of Battle Rap has made it more complex and it has become more marketable and profitable. Though a sub-culture within Hip Hop, Battle Rap is a diverse art form with several personalities, styles and skill levels.
It is gaining significant momentum across the world with leagues popping up in England, Australia and the Philippines.
These battles are different from Rap because they are written in advance with ample time for research and rehearsals. Battle Raps is not free-style. The events usually feature various matches with undercards leading up to the main events. Someone who wants to watch a battles has to do so only after reading the artiste’s blogs and the topic that the battle talks addresses. The YouTube videos are edited versions of the matches propped up by numerous effects and fused with angles.
The Battle Rap culture has also gone through a change. From call-and-response chants to school cyphers, the Battle Rap scene has survived freestyle battles on television shows to contests like the 8 Mile .
Talking about its current form, Sumant says, “Like many others, it starts with the 8 miles rap battle sequence. That sequence gave Battle Rap its foundational aesthetics. Battle Rap and rap songs are entirely different forms of rhyming, rhythm and writing. Though many rappers do both, you don’t find a recording rap legend coming back to battle rap. People like Joe Budenns Cannabis came and failed miserably.”
Battles are angry and disrespectful. Every facet of an artiste’s life is put out into the open to be ridiculed and mocked to infuriate the rapper. From family, friends, diseases, deformities, childhoods to mannerisms, “priorities,” parenting and relationships, nothing is spared.
“It was tough to start with but, once I got the hang of it, I was hooked,” says Deepshikha Sahay, a commerce student. “The artistes vent all their anger, it’s almost poetic to see this brutal form of honesty. It is the equivalent of how my parents fight. They say the meanest things to one another so that the other will shut up. But it just goes into their memory and finds a promise not kept, a dinner not taken, a failed parents-teacher meeting — it was cathartic for me to see these artistes being driven to the point of tears.”
