UPDATED: May 28, 2021 17:56 IST
Cizzy, Rapper
On the riverbanks of Chandannagar, Old Boy raps about not settling for an Alto when you really want a Ferrari. About 50 km away, in Kolkata, hip-hop artist Cizzy speaks of a quiet Bengali desperation in his song ‘Middle Class Panchali’. Across West Bengal, a large group of musicians mostly young men are finding expression in free verse and rap. Formed in 2010, the band Underground Authority had kickstarted the trend in English, but over time, Bengal’s hip-hop movement has come to include other languages Hindi, Punjabi, Maithili and even Urdu.
“Unless I was writing for a specific set of people, writing in English felt fake and unnatural. Hindi, in many ways, felt more real,” says rapper BC Azad, frontman of the hip-hop band Park Circus. Cizzy (Rounok Chakraborty), who was among the first in Kolkata to rap almost exclusively in Bengali, echoes Azad’s sentiment. “I have grown up reading Sukumar Ray and listening to Rabindras
Morning Brief (ET Bureau)
Arijit Barman | 35:07 Min | April 09, 2021, 8:15 AM IST
Young Indian hip-hop artists are now more vocal than ever about political issues and what’s brushed under the carpet. We catch up with Arivu of ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ fame, who is also a Lyricist and a Tamil playback singer, and Rounok Chakraborty, alias Cizzy, a Bengali Rapper with viral music videos like ‘Kolkatar Rasta,’ to find out why politics is making them angry and spurring their creativity.
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