DIVINE INSPIRATION
Divine would like to get one thing clear. Gully Boy, Zoya Akhtar’s upcoming Hindi film about Mumbai’s hiphop scene, is not a biopic— though it draws on his experiences and those of fellow Mumbai rapper Naezy. “[It has] some incidents from our lives, like how [Ranveer’s character] discovers hip-hop and how he gets into the scene,” says 27-year-old Divine, whose real name is Vivian Fernandes. Divine’s actual life story will be told in a documentary currently being made by Red Bull Media House, which also produced the video for his new single One Side, from his upcoming debut EP. It makes for a great yarn.
As chronicled in songs such as Mere Gully Mein and Farak, Divine grew up in the gullies and chawls of Kurla and Andheri East, where he learned to fend for himself after his single mother moved abroad to help support the family. Like most Mumbai rappers in the mid-aughties, he started out singing in English. He dabbled in gospel rap—the name Divine is a result of that phase. For a few years, he was part of the long-running crew Mumbai’s Finest.
His first track in Hindi, Yeh Mera Bombay, was an instant smash when it was released in November 2013—tallying five times the number of views of his English material. But it wasn’t until nearly two years later that he and Naezy broke into the big leagues when Mere Gully Mein went viral in April 2015.
Director Akhtar and Sony Music India’s Sushil
Chugani caught their act at a concert at the now-shuttered Mumbai venue Blue Frog; Akhtar was inspired to make Gully Boy and Chugani quickly inked Divine to a contract. “We saw some kind of realism and honesty [in him],” says Chugani, who is no longer Divine’s manager but remains his close friend and continues to guide him in an unofficial capacity. Bass music producer Nucleya, aka Udyan Sagar, who has enlisted Divine as a guest artist on his last two albums, agrees. “There’s a conviction in his voice that can’t be faked,” he says.
While we won’t know how authentically Gully Boy captures the Mumbai scene until it releases on Valentine’s Day next year, Divine believes that the film will give Bollywood its first “legit” hip-hop soundtrack. The album will feature a number of local MCs spitting gully rap, the sub-genre that he and Naezy are credited with creating. Today, the form is represented by an increasing number of young rappers from lower-income neighbourhoods such as Dharavi, who are using it both as a mode of expression and a tool for empowerment. “They’re all rapping about their problems,” says Divine about a recent ‘cypher’ attended by Ranveer Singh, a clip of which was circulated online. “[Their rhymes have] words that are only used in the gully.”
Along with the kudos, gully rap has earned some criticism—and even mockery. But Divine has never been bugged by parodies by the likes of Mumbai comedy collective Tadpatri Talkies. “If they’re going so deep into your music to find jokes, then that means you’re really popping,” says Divine, who’s now big enough that his backing band includes rock stars such as guitarist Randolph Correia from Pentagram, drummer Jai Row Kavi from Indus Creed and bassist Krishna Jhaveri from Skyharbor.
Along with the upcoming Gully Boy, Divine has recorded tracks for other filmmakers looking for a certain kind of grittiness. His Bollywood contributions include a song by Nucleya on the soundtrack of Anurag Kashyap’s boxing drama Mukkabaaz, and a tune by Amit Trivedi for Abhinay Deo’s just-released Blackmail. Marketing executives are looking to cash in on his street cred too. Last year, he recorded Suede Gully for the sneaker company Puma, while more recently Hero hired him to record a song for the launch of a new bike.
These corporate-sponsored songs can look like glorified ads. But “gully rap can’t be so ‘real’ that there’s no money coming in,” Divine says. “I’m not saying we want to make crores of rupees but at least some money where we can do something with our music.”
His biggest achievement has been convincing his mother to quit her job and move back to India. And he insists he’ll never abandon Andheri’s J.B. Nagar for a tonier suburb. “I love it here. If I move, I’ll move across the road [because] I want to make a proper studio,” he says.
Though he’s not a professionally trained producer, Divine has the rare ability to enable beat-makers “to translate the vision that he has for any given track”, according to Chugani. “[When we made] Farak for example, he sat with [producer] Pinaki for three days,” Chugani says. While he might be a bit of a control freak when it comes to his music, Divine has his head firmly on his shoulders, feels his former manager. “He’s not greedy for the material pleasures of life; he’s greedy for validation,” says Chugani.
Still, like most rappers, he’s unabashedly ambitious, not just for himself but for the ‘gully gang’ he has come to lead. “We need to take the Bombay sound outside Bombay,” says Divine. “Punjabi [hip-hop] has [its] own scene, that’s what I want for Bombay hip-hop.”
“WE NEED TO TAKE THE BOMBAY SOUND OUTSIDE BOMBAY,” SAYS DIVINE