Rhythm DIVINE

He is all set to begin shooting for Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt where he makes a brief appearance. The inspiration behind the film, Vivian Fernandes aka Divine, a leading hip hop artist, says that the film “is not based on my life. I am simply the muse.” So how did the guy who was rapping about Mumbai land up with a Bollywood film? “Zoya had attended one of my shows and that’s where I met her. She was interested in what was happening in the whole hip-hop scene in India. That was where it all started,” relates Vivian.

Slums to success

The Mumbai-based rapper who founded the Gully Gang began his innings with ‘Yeh Mera Bombay’ followed by his collaboration with fellow rapper Naezy on ‘Mere Gully Mein’ and electronica producer Nucleya on ‘Jungle Raja’. Then came ‘Jungli Sher’ which was the first official music video to be shot on iphone 6 and the first single by an Indian artiste to be released by Apple worldwide. Divine appeared for the very first time in an international show as part of the BBC Asian Network Live and the world saw his slums to success story.

“I love what I do and always do what I want to do,” says the boy who was left alone since the age of 14. Talking about his learning from those tough times, Vivian says, “My greatest learning was to keep moving and not stop for fear of failure. Had I not been in that situation maybe I wouldn’t have tasted success. Maybe I wouldn’t have been a rapper. My loneliness drove me to express myself in words. I began writing lyrics very early. Everything about hip hop attracted me –from melodies to words to sounds especially 50 Cent songs – even though I had Bollywood and Hindi songs in my life but I always chose what I wanted to listen.”

Gospel rap

But this is not how it all began. Starting with gospel rap that inspired him to take the name Divine, Vivian wrote lyrics on god which did not have an audience back then when he was chiefly writing for himself. “Those songs were not out there. My grandmother would take me to the church every day. I began writing devotional songs for myself. But some day I hope to write a whole song on Him. Presently, god features in a line or two, here and there in some of my lyrics.” Right now, he says his first EP has songs about how he lives life now. “The changes that have happened, what’s good and what’s bad. It’s another original from the heart.”

Releasing his new single ‘One Side’ next week, Vivian calls it a “personal song” in the sense that it is about the whole hip hop community, “that we’re making noise on one side together” and keeping alive this independent genre that’s now happening in different languages. Vivian himself began rapping in English and then switched to Hindi, a language he was most comfortable with. “When I write, there are times the whole song comes in one go and sometimes I pen down in parts. But everything inspires me – my surroundings, life, my friends, the people I work with. And it is the brutal honesty in thought and words that have made rap popular today,” he says of the genre that was more underground until a few years back. So what exactly does hip hop mean to him? “It means life. I am what I am because of this,” he says. And what about destiny? “You have to work to be where you are. Nothing comes easy. I don’t make ten-year goals. I live in the moment”. He has moved slowly but surely and made his Bollywood debut with Anurag Kashyap’s film Mukkebaaz with the track ‘Paintra’. He has also collaborated with Amit Trivedi on the track ‘Badla’ from Irrfan Khan-starrer Blackmail, releasing this week.

Apart from hip hop, reggae is Vivian’s favourite as also Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who he listens to when he is not up and about. Arijit Singh and Indie musicians too feature on his list as he also keeps a tab on the latest developments in Rock and Jazz.