The growing evolution of hip-hop in India will take a further step forward this weekend when five acts take over the stage at an event called Traphouse Deli. But look away now if your definition of "hip-hop in India" is confined to gully rap. For, these acts have nothing to do with the movement that started in the narrow bylanes of Dharavi and Mahim, before gaining mainstream credence in 2015. Instead, one of the acts, ViceVersa, embodies a wholly western ethos while another, MC Heam, raps in straight-up Hindi, as opposed to the Bambaiyya version. And yet another, Tadpatri Talkies, in fact parodies the likes of DIVINE and Naezy, considered to be the poster boys of gully rap in the city.

We had caught up with the six members of Tadpatri Talkies in November last year before the launch of their debut album, Bhookh. The songs in it involved a humorous takedown of the hip-hop circuit in the country, and not just gully rap specifically. The comedy collective had developed a couple of characters — Gari-B and Badboy Bandya — with a single-minded purpose of holding up a mirror to the growing tribe of rappers in Mumbai, Punjab and Delhi. In fact, one of their videos even had the duo killing the "machhar rappers" of Dharavi with mosquito squatters. Their lyrics, too, lampooned the fetishisation of poverty that gully rap often indulged in. And needless to say, none of this sat well with certain factions of Mumbai's hip-hop community.