RAP ARTISTE BRODHA V
BBangalore rapper Vignesh Shivanand, aka Brodha V, was just clowning around with his film school buddies when he started blending rap with the warbling vocals of Carnatic music. Today, his signature sound is no joke.
“I asked a Carnatic vocalist friend to sing the traditional ‘Aigiri Nandini’ while I rapped along,” said the 28-year-old, who’s now known for numbers like Ready, Steady Po and Round Round.
Even after he’d established a niche, he struggled to break into the mainstream. “I was writing rap portions for Tamil movies and I imagined it must mean I am getting bigger, but they all flopped.”
A track with Raghu Dixit for Bollywood film Mujhse Fraandship Karoge and Chennai Express followed. “While on one side I was struggling to find mainstream success, on the other people were coming to my shows to listen to me. I realised my sound was different and I might lose the fans I have, in trying to crack the cinema code,” said the rapper, who has a collaboration with Raftaar (Dilin Nair) slated for release later this year.
It’s that struggle he’s talking about in his latest hit, Way Too Easy, which urges his fans to follow their dreams. “A lot of teenagers and young adults write to me and say they are depressed with the pressures they face. I’ve been there too when I decided to take up music as a career in a South Indian family,” he said. “So I did a song that tells them (youngsters) of where I come from and how I got here, while making it sound way too easy.”
Citing the examples of Mumbai’s Divine (Vivian Fernandes) and Chennai’s Hiphop Tamizha (Adhithya Venkatapathy and R. Jeeva), Shivanand says the country is packed with talented rappers with diverse cultural influences.
“It is through rap that a guy in Punjab has an insight into the troubles of somebody in Andhra Pradesh. Each artist has his/ her own stories and distinct sound, unlike America where there is only one language to experiment with,” he said.
“It’s through rap that a guy in Punjab has an insight into the troubles of someone in Andhra”