Mumbai to host Marathi hip hop festival

Amravati is a small city in the Vidarbha region surrounded by hills Around 85 lakh people live there many of whom are farmers and adivasis All in all its one of the last places on earth you would associate with the American import of hiphop music But in 2014 a youngster named Saurabh Abhyankar aka 100RBH released a track called Amravati RapThe lyrics have been written in the Marathi dialect prevalent in the area and Abhyankar influenced by the emergence of rap music in Mumbai talks about growing up in his hometown And soon almost everyone in the city was familiar with the song hed writtenBamboy and MC Mawali PicAshish RaneThat wouldnt have been possible had this been an English or even Hindi track The words just wouldnt have resonated with the locals the way his did But Abhyankar belongs to the second wave of Marathi rappers The seeds for this niche subset were first sown in 2011 when a Dharavibased crew called Dopeadelicz composed Aai Shapath Mother Promise We had been rapping in English till then But then when we came out with the track it really connected with people I then realised the importance of Marathi rap because at that point there was only one person on the scene who was doing anything similar says Tony Sebastian founding member of DopeadeliczMC AzadThe person he is referring to MC Mawali or Aklesh Sutar is one of the founding members of Swadesi Mumbais most noteworthy Marathi hiphop crew But Sutar tells us that back in 2011 he was only in the process of writing and producing the first Marathi track he would eventually release in 2014 Its called Laaj Watte Kai Are You Ashamed and along with Aai Shapath it laid the foundation for this genre to take shape Before that there were only a handful of individuals who had written a few Marathi pieces We still didnt have a market for this music until some Bboys who had also written rap songs started coming out of the shadows And thats how I met MC Azad too says Sutar referring to Rushikesh Jadhav with whom hell perform at a Marathi hiphop showcase this evening which also features Abhyankar and Tushar Adhav aka Bamboy a DJ and producerThe Swadesi crew performs at the Ctrl Alt Del festivalWe get in touch with Jadhav who tells us that his story begins at the grounds of Shivaji Park in 2015 Thats where he would practise dancing with a Bboying crew when one day he saw a group of rappers holding a cypher next to them He already had a few Marathi pieces in his kitty But the people in this cypher were singing in English So I was a bit apprehensive of approaching them But then I somehow gathered the courage and after I performed one of the people there Ankur Johar told me Stick to Marathi because thats where your mass audience lies and you can reach a larger number of people he saysTaking this piece of advice seriously the youngster polished his skills and eventually formed a foundation called Utkrushta through which he takes Marathi rap music to the hinterland Hes travelled to villages like Deopuri near Karjat and to Satara and says that the reactions he received there were pharu or incredible That goes to show that the seeds first laid in 2011 have flowered into a plant that is only growing In fact Anurag Kashyap and the makers of reality TV shows have shown interest in Marathi hiphop Mumbai itself has around five crews dedicated to the language Even Amravati Abhyankar informs has scores of kids rapping in the local dialect Sutar actually goes as far as to liken this movement to a growing wave that will soon evolve into a tsunami And if Indian hiphop is to evolve to a place where the country eventually finds its own rap language one can only hope that he is proven trueON Tonight 9 pmAT Levis Lounge Mathuradas Mill Compound Lower ParelLOG ON TO insiderinCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates