Bangalore has pioneered a lot of notable achievements in the music scene. And once again, the music lovers in the city have reason to cheer with Bangalore’s rappers coming together for the first ever Indian rap cypher.
A cyclical freestyle form of rapping in which each singer takes turns to rap without breaking the flow, the cypher brought together the city’s fastest and quirkiest vocalists under the same hoodie. Led by Sumukh Mysore aka Smokey and Vighnesh Shivanand aka Brodha V, the group created a history of sorts in the rap music scene in the country.
Speaking to MetroPlus after the launch of their music video, Sumukh and Vighnesh talk about their gig and share the inside story.
“The first thing we did as a team was educate people about cypher since it’s largely an uncharted territory in the country,” says Sumukh. The pair had already raised the Bangalore bar high with their rap for the Bollywood movie Chennai Express .
Hip hop in India has been at a low though it’s been around for almost 20 years, explains Sumukh. “Bohemia, the Punjabi rapper, has been doing it. But it has not broken free. Rap in India is not up to international standards and no rapper has established himself. We want to establish rap and also ensure that this is not American hip-hop. This is our very own Indian hip-hop. That is why even the beat is very Indianised and the lyrics are as indigenous as possible. We also have a few Kannada rappers in the team.” The duo says the setup was straightforward and simple. “We got together on a Sunday and decided to do the cypher. The following Sunday we worked on the beat and by the next day we had finished the recording. It took us just over eight days. By the next Sunday we had the music video ready.”
The cypher was in many ways freestyle, says Vighnesh. “The rappers in the team are extremely talented so the rap evolved by itself and we did an impromptu setup in the studio. Then we learnt the lyrics again for the video.”
With Bangalore paving the way with the cypher, Mumbai and Delhi soon followed suit. “We brought out a Delhi and a Mumbai version of the Indian rap cypher videos. So it’s a first step to show that we are all together. We want to move on to do shows together, mix crowds, establish a rap scene just like the rock and EDM scene that stormed the country.”
They feel the onus to reclaim rap. “People in the industry have taken away the soul of hip-hop. So it kind of motivated us. We decided to educate people and when we put out the video, people felt very proud and got to know that this is the real hip-hop.”
On the future of rap, Sumukh says earlier people used to think that saying ya-ya and yo-yo was rap. “Now people are paying attention. This is the perfect time and we are getting to the peak soon. The genre itself is coming up now. While Mumbai has a class of its own with rugged rapping styles, Bangalore definitely has some of the most talented rappers with our own signature classy rapper trend.”
Looking ahead, Vignesh says “we will be working towards bringing all the elements of hip-hop onto one platform and work as a community. Graffiti artistes, b-boys, beatboxers and dancers will be joining us in this movement.”
Sumukh pitches in and says: “Everyone is putting their hands together. We are trying to be a self-sufficient label. Earlier, we used to fight and diss each other. But now we are grown up and finding logical ways to come up with solutions. People are also noting singers simply because we are all standing together now.”
The rappers further say the scene still needs to develop. “Hip-hop is still an opening act. We haven’t reached the stage where people want a hip-hop finale. But we hope to change that. We are seeking separate stages in festivals and getting other artistes to also collaborate with us. So it will happen soon.”
The Indian rap cypher is available on YouTube.
