BACK TO THE ROOTS

How international Tamil artists Dhee and Shan Vincent de Paul are blurring local and global music boundaries, via record label and platform maajja

- Anurag Tagat

CLAD IN A TIGER-PRINT shirt on a cloudy Toronto morning, Shan Vincent de Paul is talking about his 2019 song “Out Alive.” A lot has changed in two years in the world outside and within Shan as well, but he talked about a “brown artist renaissance” for South Asian music makers back then.

Born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka and fleeing to Canada with his family as a child, the hip-hop artist put pen to paper and wrote powerful songs like “Die Iconic” in 2016, but he’s been at his most prolific in the past two years. He released two albums – SVDP 2 in 2019 and Kothu Boys with Canadian-Tamil producer-singer Yanchan in 2020 – and got worldwide acclaim for the song series “Mrithangam Raps” (also with Yanchan) and is now prepping to release his next album Made In Jaffna on September 3rd via record label and South Asian-focused platform maajja.

Rapping at breakneck speed and with the intensity of a torn heart, songs like “One Hundred Thousand Flowers,” “Savage” and most recently, “Neeye Oli” with fellow Tamil-origin hip-hop artist Navz-47, directly and metaphorically reference civil wars in Sri Lanka and the emigration of some Tamils from the country. He says over a video call, “The stuff for this album is representative of a larger people, not just me. That’s also reflective… the success that comes with it also really does feel like a success for my community.”