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The Real Bombay Bronx

• Mark Strippel
• 6 Feb 07, 03:53 PM

My flight left Mumbai’s Sahar Airport just ten minutes ago. I still bear the evidence of my visit, from mosquito ‘macchar-punctures’ and a battered copy of ‘Shantaram’, to a ruined pair of once box-fresh trainers now permanently impregnated with red oxide dust. The sounds of India still ring heavily in my ears, from the heavily rotated Bollywood of ‘Barso Re’ to the progressive young knives of the Indian Underground: Funcinternational, Vishal and Shekhar, Jalebee Cartel, Submerge and Pentagram.

Every trip to India enhances my musical awareness and experience in some way. It’s rarely more than a year between visits, but each occasion gives me a fresh outlook on how the scenes in the ‘metro cities’ of India are evolving and which musical trends are being picked up. As a music journalist and DJ/Presenter I had always seen India’s music scene from different perspectives. On my first visit a decade ago I had plans to export UK Bhangra in those pre-Punjabi boom years. A year ago I was DJ-ing with Panjabi Hit Squad in ‘Elevate’. In my capacity as Head of Music I was keener than ever to check how British-Asian music’s influence is shaping up.

This visit was no different, and there was a new update in Mumbai’s musical zeitgeist to download: Hip-Hop music and culture really has arrived in India.

Now i’m not talking about the un-pukka pastiche’s that have proliferated across Indi-Pop and Bollywood for some years. I’m talking Shook Ones, Hell on Earth, New York, Havoc and Prodigy. I’m talking about real Hip-Hop and Rap royalty. I’m talking about the custodians of the Queensbridge legacy Mobb Deep live in concert in Mumbai. QB’s finest, backed by G-Unit’s DJ Whoo Kid, recently performed at a VH1 ‘Hip-Hop Hustle’ concert in India’s entertainment capital as part of the channels bid to introduce Hip-Hop to the metro cities of a nation that has been reared on a diet more centred around Rock, Blues, Dance and Trance than the lyrical art-form pioneered by DJ Kool Herc.

Until recently the comparatively limited access to new releases drawn from the UK Top 40 or Billboard meant that India’s youth gravitated more towards classic Rock or Blues. An Eric Clapton and JJ. Cale album would normally shift more units in India than a Top 10 US Hip-Hop album. Rock music traditions are revered more closely out here and most kids know more about Fender Stratocaster than Technics 1210. Apart from a monthly UK Rock night at legendary Mumbai venue ‘The Ghetto’ there isn’t much awareness around the likes of Pete Doherty, Kaiser Chiefs or Kasabian. US Heavy Rock, Metal and Classic Rock are infinitely more popular. Judas Priest recently had the biggest-selling Rock album in India. Deep Purple recently made the front-page with a performance in Bangalore. Bon Jovi ‘It’s My Life’ is still a popular ring-tone, and Led Zep still maintain messianic status. A Donington-type Festival would work well in India.

Jitin Abraham is a Senior Creative Director at MTV India. He’s one of a handful of key music power brokers responsible for introducing new ‘Western’ music to India. I recall meeting him three years ago in London where he set out his plans for launching VH1 in the country. Unlike VH1 in Europe and the States the India version was designed to focus solely on English-language music (leaving Bollywood coverage on MTV India), leading to a hybrid bhel-puri that would pull together Rock music and Urban Black music on the same channel. Cue massive cultural change of the music tastes of India’s metro youth akin to that witnessed in America with the launch of MTV in the 80’s.

On this occasion I met up with Jitin in the MTV India offices in Parle, South Mumbai. Huge images of Coldplay, Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani adorn the walls. Jitin talked me through the channels approach to breaking Rap music and we watched footage from the recent Mobb Deep concert. The packed Mumbai audience looked identical to any British-Asian or American Desi club crowd, combined with a small contingent of European Ex-Pats, and Indian-born Nigerians drawn from the city’s little-known African community.

The switch to Urban music tastes extends right across Indian TV. Several channels now have the latest Hip-Hop, R’n’B and Dancehall videos on heavy rotation. Channel V recently ran a national Hip-Hop competition and interviewed a Kolkata-based MC. I was impressed by his on-point flow, his lyrics had real local resonance and, most importantly, his accent was Indian, avoiding the appropriation of the American accent so widespread in most International Hip-Hop scenes. Zee TV have also followed suit with a station devoted to Dance and R’n’B.

Even the clubs don’t sound the same. Just a few years ago most clubs seemed dominated by the sounds of Ricky Martin, Bryan Adams or Enrique Iglesias mixed up with the latest Bollywood biggie. There were only a few players in the Underground club-scene specialising in Trance, House or Hip-Hop. Now it’s all changed. Mumbai clubbers are just as likely to hear the imported sounds from our very own Bobby Friction or Nerm as they are local DJ’s like Aqueel, Akbar or Submerge. Even Kingfisher-billionaire Vijay Mallya’s legendary New Years Eve party in Goa was dominated by Bollywood, Reggaeton and Hip-Hop. Over the last year UK Hip-Hop launched it’s own mini-assault here with an India mini-tour featuring Mentat, Matt from ‘Scratch’ and our very own No-Names of Foreign Beggars. Future club tours are in the offing.

And then there’s the British-Asian influence. The influence of British-Asian fronted and focused music compilations has been profound. The likes of Friction, Bombay Bronx and releases featuring NRI (Non Resident Indian) MC’s like Bohemia and Hard Kaur have surely helped bridge the gulf between US Hip-Hop and domestic Indian tastes by introducing the genre through a related route and shared ties, supported by a platform of major labels and TV channels. The subtext to Dum Dum Projects pivotal ‘Punjabi 5-0’ could have been lifted from a page from Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games. A slew of UK Desi DJ’s, from Nerm to Zeus and RDB have continued to take British-Asian sounds even further afield to Delhi, Pune and Bangalore. That influence bleeds across boundaries to the cities of neighbouring nations. Just a year ago both Nihal and myself DJ-ed out in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

麻豆官网首页入口 Asian Network is also an influence. Of the countless Artists, DJ’s and Record Labels that I met on this trip, nearly all commented that 麻豆官网首页入口 Asian Network provide a real platform for progressive Indian music. We are acting as a cultural catalyst from afar, and as a result have bedroom DJ’s and Producers all over Asia emailing us mp3’s on a weekly basis.

What about the homegrown artist development? The scene has to be about more than the imported US Hip-Hop of The Game or British-Asian compilations. There are a number of emerging Indian rappers coming through, including Ishq Bector, Blaaze, and even the pop-rap of Baba Sehgal has a minor following. I’m sure there are lots more. Hip-Hop has even infiltrated Indian film soundtracks, with Vishal-Shekhar bringing the biggest beats in Bollywood right now. Witness Abishek Bachchan’s attempt at rapping on the Bluffmaster soundtrack.

And it’s about more than the music. A hybrid Hindustan Hip-Hop fashion is evolving. I saw a couple of South-Indian migrant labourers with their trademark baseball caps slanted. College kids in Santa Cruz wearing G-Unit T-Shirts. Colaba cool kids all 2-Pacced up. My Auto Rickshaw lurched to the left when I spotted a Def Jam logo daubed in a filmi style outside the ‘Smackdown’ Hip-Hop clothing store on Linking Road in North Mumbai’s Bandra.

Lyrical context will be an interesting battleground in the development of homegrown Indian Hip-Hop. How will the politically-charged polemic and revolutionary nature of Rap work alongside an Indian entertainment industry often framed by popularism and conformity?

If India’s homegrown Hip-Hop scene is to grow then it has to be on it’s own artistic terms, not defined or shaped by the mass populism of Bollywood. Reference points are all around. Wu-Tang set their music against a backdrop of Shaolin mysticism. India has real mysticism in abundance. Hip-Hop was originally a voice of the disaffected and rose from Projects and Council Estates. Try comparing Mumbai’s Dharavi (Asia’s largest slum) to the roughest estates in Bow, or anything New York has to offer. I wouldn’t bet against a lyrical sub-genre eventually developing in places like Dharavi, similar to the emergence of the Baille Funk soundtrack to the favela’s of Rio. Hip-Hop has the ability to cross barriers of class, caste, religion or community. It can be the voice of the dispossessed and social conscience. The time is right for an artist outside of the States and Europe to break through – witness the emergence of K’Naan from Mogadishu.

As a form of street poetry Hip-Hop is more suited to the Indian musical landscape than you might think. In the land of shayeri it won’t be long before a home-grown Indian wordsmith emerges with the skills of a modern-day Rabindranath Tagore or Bulle Shah.