Indulekha Warrier is trending. The playback singer’s ‘Penn Rap’ has gone viral with the video released on Instagram touching 4 lakh views in three days. The musician is on cloud nine, with celebrities such as Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Santosh Sivan, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Gopi Sunder and several A-listers “sharing or appreciating” the video.
In her first attempt at writing lyrics and rapping, the musician takes a hard look at the dos and don’ts imposed on a woman by society. She points out how “societal norms” take away her freedom to speak, think, dream, move and even dress. Her hard-hitting lyrics point out that a womanis not an object to be leered at and perhaps it is time to change the “outlook” of men.
Indulekha says that although she had written the lines a while ago, she did not have the courage and confidence to put it out on a public platform. “I had planned to bring out the full song on my YouTube channel. However, since I was not sure about how it would work, we shot a small portion for my Instagram page (@indulekhawarrier), like a test dose. The response has been amazing,” says Indulekha, daughter of actor Jayaraj Warrier.
She admits that her father was “shocked” when he read the lyrics. “My family was apprehensive until the video came out,” Indulekha laughs. As for her look in the video, she adds that it was “carefully chosen”, including the T-shirt with the word ‘Scandalized’’ emblazoned on it and the large shades she has used!
Encouraged to rap
Indulekha says that actor-writer Jayaprakash Kuloor, also her “father’s teacher”, has always encouraged her to rap. “He used to tell me that there aren’t many Malayalam women rap singers and that I should give it a try. He felt that women would have a lot to tell society and rap could be that medium. Sir is extremely happy with my song,” says the 27-year-old settled in Chennai.
Indulekha Warrier | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
To the “very few” who have objected to the no-holds-barred verses, Indulekha says: “What I have written is what I have heard people I know talk about. At the same time, I am not generalising. There are men who respect and support women. In fact, my husband, Anand [Achuthankutty], is my biggest motivator. He was the one who shot the video,” she says.
She says that it is not easy to write rap in Malayalam as it is difficult to blend rhyme and rhythm when compared to Tamil. Music programmer Edwin Johnson, who worked with Stephen Devassy, has helped her with voice effects.
Trained in music from the age of seven, Indulekha has sung playback in Malayalam films such as Apothecary and Autorsha besides a couple of projects in Tamil and Telugu. During the lockdown, she has been uploading her rendition of Malayalam poems and cover songs (Induz Music Tales) and travel vlogs (Induz Travel Tales) on her YouTube channel.