That’s a rap

BENGALURU: On a Sunday afternoon, a group of 30 rappers is busy jamming in the largest lung space in Bengaluru, Cubbon Park. Calling themselves Wanandaf (referring to the ‘one-and-half’ metered auto rickshaws) this group which meets every Sunday, is supposedly hosting Bengaluru’s first rap cypher. Harish Panchjanya, a student pursuing his PG Diploma in Mechatronics, uses Kannada rap to question the stereotypical “back benchers” in a classroom. “I didn’t know that rap even existed. One day when my vehicle got towed by the police, I came to Cubbon Park to retrieve it. That’s when I heard some of these rappers jamming. I went up to them spit out a couple of verses then and there. I had been singing in orchestras but this cypher really set a different stage for me,” he said.

Carter Ruff is a Buddhist rapper from North Carolina who came to India two years ago to travel the country. Ruff came to Bengaluru and instantly connected with rappers here. He wants to help set the stage for the rap movement brewing in Bengaluru as he feels that Kannada rap can also be as mainstream as Punjabi rap.

With tracks playing through Bluetooth speakers, the rappers went freestyle. Lyrically woven into their rap were narratives of food, poverty, power and revolution in Kannada, Hindi and English. “This space is meant to express our feelings, regardless of the barriers of caste and religion that are so prominent out there,” said Manoj Kumar, a rapper and a neurolinguistics teacher. The music attracted various people, and teenagers and young adults quickly updated their Instagram stories with live feeds of the jamming session.
‘Smokey’ Sumukh, one of the core members of the cypher, realised there was a need not only to promote rap, but also nurture it. In this informal workshop, he emphasised to his young audience the importance of delivering punchlines and how one can utilise their breath judicially while rapping longer lines. “We rappers access these emotions through rap and hence, it is very important to pronounce vowels,” he said going on to teach pronunciation exercises.

As afternoon turned to evening, more and more people gathered around and the session ended with a lot of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the small audience that had gathered.This male space gives us some food for thought as we wrap up. “How can one nurture or introduce women’s representation in such spheres?”