Up and coming hip-hop and pop talent from three Northeastern states of India will converge under one roof in the city this week
Rapper Karma Longthen and his crew in the music video, Chota Sa Gaon. PIC COURTESY/DHH ON YOUTUBE
They call me Arunachal ka Divine,” rapper Karma Longthen’s curt introduction over our call quashes the idea that Northeast India is all rockers and metalheads. We should’ve known; his newest music video Chota Sa Gaon is a spitting image of Andheri -based rap veteran Vivian Fernandes aka Divine’s music videos — hoodie-clad crewmates, bright bandanas, bikes doing burnouts — all that, just set far away in the picture-perfect hills of Arunachal Pradesh’s Nafra village in the Lower Dzang. This Thursday, the 25-year-old will look down at the hills from his first flight to Mumbai for a performance.
Longthen, aka Reemboo will be one of the five hip-hop and pop talent from the Northeast to arrive in the city for The Biggest Northeast Night organised by Assam-based collective, Hanghatik (Assamese: grand, gigantic). “I remember we organised one of the first showcases for our Northeastern brothers and sisters in Gorai in 2016. It drew in some 60-odd people. It was a big number for us,” recalls co-founder Raktim Roy, a media professional and longtime Mumbai resident.
AJ Maisnam. PIC COURTESY/JN SAPAMCHA, Rjay Mangkhom. PIC COURTESY/@rajikant, Jelo and Kimkima Ralte. PIC COURTESY/@kimkimaralte_S
Raktim Roy
Started as a collective to help students charting the journey from Seven Sisters to the Maximum City feel at home, Roy’s community has changed shape with time, and he’s glad. “Racism was rife once upon a time. People imagined Shillong was in Assam, Guwahati in Sikkim and Mizoram was a city somewhere in Burma. We would help students navigate cases of racism in the city in collaboration with the authorities. But now, the times are changing, and music is bridging the closing gap between the Northeastern states and the rest of India,” Roy reveals.
While the Northeast diaspora is relatively small in Mumbai compared to cities in closer proximity like Delhi, and IT hubs like Pune and Bengaluru, the community here is a close-knit one. Musicians Rjay Mangkhom and AJ Maisnam from Manipur, Kimkima Ralte and Jelo from Mizoram are all being flown in, knowing that their fans in the city will show up. “Nearly two in three attendees are from the community. Which means every third one is a Mumbaikar with an ear for fresh music,” the co-founder points out.
Raktim Roy
“I’m excited to come to Mumbai. It’s a big city, and I have a few friends in the hip-hop circles that I’m looking forward to meeting,” Longthen tells us. The rapper recently collaborated with Powai-based rapper Rahul Khadtare who shared the screen with actor Ranveer Singh in Gully Boy (2019). The fact that we’re conversing with him in our Bambaiya Hinglish, peppered with the occasional ‘merekos’ and ‘terekos’ should give away how much that gap Roy talks about has closed in recently.
“If there’s two things we like in the Northeast, it’s fashion and music; hip-hop is the best of both worlds,” Roy signs off. Be there in your best fits, we’d say. It’s going to be hanghatik, to say the least.
ON August 6; 8.30 pm
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