THE GREAT DISRUPTOR
Rapper SlowCheeta is trying to shake things up with his EP, Scene Mein Bawaal
April was a busy time for rapper and actor SlowCheeta aka Chaitnya Sharma. Last month saw the release of the sports drama Maidaan, in which he played legendary Indian footballer P.K. Banerjee, as well as his sophomore EP, Scene Mein Bawaal. Both projects had been in the making for three years, but SlowCheeta didn’t work on them simultaneously because he consciously keeps his two careers separate. “I would not like to be writing an EP while doing a film and vice versa,” says the 33-year-old MC signed to INCINK Records, the music label co-founded by actor Ranveer Singh. “It seems a bit disloyal to one if I do something else at the same time”. SlowCheeta candidly admits that he waited to put out Scene Mein Bawaal, and the Singhfeaturing video for focus track ‘Kar De Kaa?’, after Maidaan opened at the box oce in order to capitalise on the attention he would get from the big-budget Bollywood production. Now that the film is out, he’s shifted his focus to promoting the EP, which is based around the idea of taking listeners through “every emotion” you experience when taking a particular step. “It could be something as silly as starting a workout or something as deep as hugging your father after 20 years,” he says. On the dance-friendly ‘Kar De Kaa?’, SlowCheeta playfully asks his audience whether he should go ahead with a plan. Next we hear him chopping—a form of super-fast rapping—on ‘Maniac’, which represents the phase when you overthink the decision. It’s followed by the galloping ‘Chaaku Bhonk’, which aims to capture the confidence you eventually gain to finally execute it, and party
anthem ‘90’s ke Ladke’, which celebrates achieving what you set out to do. On outro ‘Chai Biskoot’, he reflects on “what just happened”. As with most rappers, identity is a recurring theme in SlowCheeta’s work. In his case, it’s something he’s been grappling with since he was a child, he says. His first name Chaitnya is spelt without the second ‘a’ because an uncle suggested his parents remove it for numerological reasons. Similarly, his performance name is written without the ‘h’ that ends “cheetah”. “I’ve spent my life correcting people [about my name],” he says. “So when I started writing as ‘Cheeta’, I would leave out the ‘h’ [perhaps] as a subconscious way [to say], this is my unique identity.” His upper-middle class background also makes him stand out among his peers. The rapper says he named his EP Scene Mein Bawaal (Commotion in the Scene) to let people know that “I’ve come here to disrupt everything”. And that despite his occasional hiatuses, he’s “not going anywhere”.