“Oh yes, I speak Tamil,” says Yung Raja over a patchy phone call from Delhi. Suddenly, the conversation warms up. The American accent gives way to fluid Tamil and the 23-year-old opens up about life, his love for India, and his music. “I’m the youngest son in my family that has three sisters, so everyone called me ‘chinna thambi’,” he says. “This translated to ‘young’ and I kept it as part of my name. Yung Raja, also translates to Ilaiyaraaja, doesn’t it?” Yung performed at Singapore Weekender, a three-day experiential festival, organised by the Singapore Tourism Board in collaboration with St+art India Foundation, that concluded in Delhi last week.
Yung’s family has its roots in Thanjavur. “My father taught Chemistry and Math at Saraswathi College there,” he says. “They moved to Singapore in 1992 for a better life and I was born three years later.” While his father Rajid Ahamed went on to become a popular Tamil writer in the years that followed, Yung took to acting. “I’ve been a Rajinkanth fan ever since I can remember,” he says. “When I was little, I refused to eat unless my mother played Muthu or Baasha on television,” he laughs.
His acting career spanned ten years, and saw him in English and a Japanese film, apart from commercials and TV serials. But then, music changed his life. “I was around eight when I listened to Eminem on one of the CDs I found in my akka’s room,” he remembers. He was instantly drawn to it. Some ten years later, when he got his first computer system, Yung downloaded a software that recorded music, did rap covers and recorded it on Sound Cloud. “I just did it for fun. I didn’t realise that I could actually make a career out of it,” he says.
Today, though, Yung is a full-time musician, writing his own songs, and rapping at events in Malaysia, Indonesia, and India, apart from Singapore, through the year. When he is not travelling for performances, Yung composes songs. “It’s been two years since I started my rap career,” he explains. Rapping, for Yung, is a way to tell his story. “As a Tamilian in Singapore, I was constantly questioning who I really was,” he says. “At home, we spoke Tamil and my mother wore a sari…but once I stepped out, I was an entirely different person.” He spoke English, and interacted with people who were completely different from those in his family. “I underwent a cultural shock,” he says.
Rapping, for him, is his way of expressing his search for answers about his identity. “It helps me bridge these two worlds,” he says. “That’s the beauty of rap.” Yung strings Tamil words with English into his songs, which is only natural. This is his USP, his way of blending the two worlds that make him.
“I first came to India for a performance last year. It was in Mumbai,” he says. It was the most unforgettable stage of his life. “I cannot describe the feeling,” says Yung. “This is my thai mann (native land) and it was like a dream to perform here. It was overwhelming.”
