Meet The Musicians Who Seek To Inspire Social Change Through Their Tunes

Meet the musicians who seek to inspire social change through their tunes.

- Sumitra Nair

Who are you? What you even doing in here?

Pardon my ignorance, but lately too many immigrants in India

Did you sneak in through the border? You look Chinese

I ain’t racist, I just judged you based on how your stupid face is

See, you got little eyes and no eyebrows

What, you think you Indian? Ha, I doubt!

THESE PROVOCATIVE LYRICS by rapper Big Deal would probably sit right with the current political climate; one in which many Assam residents have lost their ‘Indianness’ thanks to the final list of the National Register of Citizens. Born to a Japanese mother and an Odiya father, Samir Rishu Mohanty, aka Big Deal, also felt “un-Indian” while at boarding school in Darjeeling. “I would be teased for my small eyes and un-Indian features,” says the Bengaluru-based rapper. “Most songs have been written from my own experience. Them having a social [relevance] is merely a coincidence.”

Mohanty, 29, took to rapping after watching 8 Mile, the 2002 Hollywood film on American rapper Eminem.

“Growing up, it almost felt like I was not good at anything. But watching this film changed my life as it was so inspirational. So, I took up [rapping] as a hobby and it evolved into a full-time thing,” he says. His songs are in Odiya and English; topics vary from racism and police brutality in the northeast to student suicides. Language is clearly not a barrier for Mohanty, whose songs ‘Mu Heli Odia’ and ‘Khusi Ta’ about the people of Odisha have garnered more than 1.5 million views together. He says wants his music to do the talking.

ALL FOR JUSTICE