All Eyes On Me

Indian hip hop is pushing to the fore with a unique sound – gully hip hop – driven by a hand ful of dedicated and talented rappers.

- Rituparna Som

It’s 6pm and we’re losing light, as we gather in a narrow driveway or gully inside one of Mumbai’s old mills, now converted to a galaxy of offices, stores, cafes and studios. All that remains of the once flourishing Bombay textile industry are myriad corrugated gates. We’ve chosen a particularly rusted, gritty one and placed our three protagonists against it – a makeshift ‘street’ backdrop to the city’s growing obsession with ‘gully hip hop’. The decidedly Mumbai-flavoured brand of music is characterised by strong Mumbai-Hindi rap, a delivery of the city’s typical brand of slang that sounds insolent against the refined Hindi that north India speaks. Its good naturedly arrogant nature suits our protagonists well, the spearheaders of this genre of music – 24-year-old Divine, aka Vivian Fernandes, 23-year-old Naezy aka Naved Shaikh, and 24-year-old Dee MC aka Deepa Unnikrishnan. Their swagger is enviable. In a mix of Indian designer wear and althleisure, that little gully might as well be their stage, where they tear up their audience night after night, through one stellar performance after another, confidently creating a voice of hip hop you will not find anywhere else.