Ranveer Singh is the best choice for Gully Boy, says rapper Divine
Even as his performance as Alauddin Khilji in Padmaavat continues to garner attention, Ranveer Singh has started shooting for his next film, Gully Boy, directed by Zoya Akhtar. For this film, he steps into the shoes of a rapper, one who starts his journey from the slums of Mumbai.
What many people might not know is that Ranveer is playing a character ‘inspired’ by the real-life rapper, Vivian Fernandes a.k.a Divine.
Divine’s song ‘Mere gully mein’ currently has over 3 million views on YouTube, and he reveals that he was into hip-hop from a young age. “I discovered it at the age of 14, and when I started college, it became my way of expressing my emotions, be it anger or happiness. I wrote my songs in English, but I was thinking in Hindi, because I didn’t know that we could do hip-hop in Hindi. At that time, there was no such thing happening in India,” says Divine, whose youth was spent in the JB Nagar slum of Mumbai.
“My mother works abroad, and my father has long been separated from the family, so I lived with my nani (maternal grandmother), and spent all my time with friends. They’ve always stuck with me, and would even stand behind me in my music videos,” adds Divine. His song, ‘Yeh mera Bombay’, went viral in 2014, and soon he was signed on by a major music label. His success story prompted Zoya to make a film inspired by him and his group, popularly called the Gully Gang.
Divine reveals, “We were the first guys to spark the Hindi hip-hop scene, and now there’s a rapper in every gully, which is all I wanted. Our story will finally be on the big screen, and Ranveer Singh is the right guy to do it. I have hung out with him a couple of times, and he’s a great guy.”
All praise for Zoya, he reveals, “If you’re writing a film on hip-hop, the most important thing is you should be a good writer. Zoya had come for one of our shows; that’s how she discovered us. Then she visited us and I was more than happy to chat with her and Reema (Kagti, coscriptwriter) and tell them everything about the [hip-hop] scene. I don’t know the story, but we’re a part of the film and its music.”