Following Cardi B's Grammy win for Best Rap Album, we met four hip-hop artistes who show how women are not 'female rappers', but just 'rappers'
Pic/@juietakesphotos
Something that's never happened before happened earlier this month. American hip-hop musician Cardi B became the first female solo artiste to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. And it set us thinking. If you've seen the movie Gully Boy, did you notice how — among all the "scenesters" like DIVINE, Shah Rule, Emiway Bantai and gang — there was only one female rapper, who seemed planted in the movie for token representation?
Is it such that hip-hop in India is largely about the boys, gully or not? Well, to be honest, it is to a certain extent. A complicated combination of factors has meant that there are only a handful of women across the country practising the genre. But, some of them are so good that they can wipe the floor with their male counterparts. And yet, they are unfairly tagged as "female MCs" or "femcees", when their gender should have nothing to do with their craft.
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So, let's break stereotypes and look at the following four musicians for who they are — musicians who are as responsible for furthering the cause of hip-hop in India as any other person is. They come from different parts of the country, and have their individual stories to tell. But what binds them together is their shared love for hip-hop. After all, why should boys have all the fun?
MC Kaur
It isn't easy getting hold of Manmeet Kaur aka MC Kaur for an interview. The rapper hails from Mohali and grew up in Mumbai. She then spent some time in Chennai and has now forsaken the mainstream radar, choosing a non-materialistic life in Goa over any concrete jungle. But we do manage to reach her, and she says, "It's hard for me to pose for photo shoots when I am told how to. It's a challenge to show an expression and believe in a brand's products when I have doubts about the way it was manufactured. Instead, it satisfies me to know that I am still managing to be poor. And I believe in working with people I respect." That last bit reflects in the collaborations that have been keeping her busy. Kaur has teamed up with a bunch of conscious freestylers from across the world. But her heart, she adds, lies in taking the language of rap music to her hometown, Mohali.
Pic/Samrat Nagar
Siri Narayan
The only time we have heard Siri Narayan live is at The Habitat in Mumbai. She was performing there last year at a showcase for Azadi records, the label she has signed up with. Unsurprisingly, she is the only woman on their roster and subjectively speaking, she was better than most of the others we heard that day. Narayan tells us, "People don't give you due credit. They want to refer to you as a 'female rapper' first, and not a 'rapper', which is really annoying because nobody calls a guy a 'male rapper', right? I think we need more women in the scene, not just as rappers, but as directors and producers as well. There was this one project where I worked with a female director, and it's so rare that even I went like, 'Oh, it's a woman.' So, in a way, I am also guilty, but there really is a lack of female representation in the industry."
Pic/Ashish Saha
Meba Ofilia
If you simply hear the song, Done Talking, instead of watching the video for it, you might easily be fooled into thinking that the female voice belongs to someone from the West. But no, that person is Meba Ofilia, and she's from Shillong. The society there is largely matrilineal. And Ofilia feels that the representation of female hip-hop artistes is thus slightly better than elsewhere in the country. "The genre has been growing here over the past five to six years, and we have an awesome fan base of people who actually love the music, not just because it's trending. There are many artistes who have emerged, both male and female. And the reason for that I think is that being from Shillong, we
come more from a place of struggle [the root of the hip-hop movement]. The culture here is unique, so when people listen to us, they hear something fresh," she says.
Pic/Sameer Markande
Dee MC
It's all about conditioning. That's the reason why people use the phrase "female rappers", feels Deepa Unnikrishnan, or Dee MC. But she doesn't blame them. It's just how people are, Unnikrishnan says. "When somebody calls me a 'femcee', I correct them by saying that the term doesn't exist. But when someone calls me a 'female rapper', it's not something they are doing on purpose. To be honest, it used to affect me when I started out at the age of 19. But now, I have established my place," the 25-year-old from Mumbai tells us. She adds that the hip-hop circuit has reached a place where people are bored of constantly listening to men talk about their issues. "So, everyone wants more women in the scene."
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