Gully girls: Closing the gender gap in rap

A new wave of female rappers is out to prove that they can rock the mic in the male-dominated world of desi hip-hop

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Desi hip hop hit the mainstream with the release of the movie Gully Boy in 2019. Though rappers like Divine and Naezy became household names, there were hardly any female rappers of note. Of late, that is slowly changing. Srushti Tawade, a 23-year-old rapper and writer from Mumbai, has gone viral more than once for her funny, energetic raps on a reality TV show, with one of her songs, ‘Main nahi toh kaun’, getting 67 million views. In it, she acknowledges what some say about her (and perhaps other women in the ‘scene’), “Maana rapper waali vibe nahi hain okay? Par aisa nahi ki versatile nahi hain, theek hain?” (I may not have the vibe of a rapper, okay? But that doesn’t mean I’m not versatile, okay?) The chorus playfully booms, “Main nahi toh kaun be? Haan? Haan?” (If not me, then who?).

A couple of years ago, Tawade was doing a nine-to-five job as a content writer. “I needed money so I went for the first job I could find out of college, but I wanted to get out of it. I started writing rap for fun and people around me were appreciative,” says the performer whose stage presence and expressions help her stand out from the crowd. She auditioned for the rap reality show almost 60 times before she got through. “Two months ago, I couldn’t have imagined this (response) in my wildest dreams.”

When it comes to fame, Indian American rapper Raja Kumari is probably up there. Not only does she have a Grammy nomination to her name, she has also worked with names like Gwen Stefani and Iggy Azalea. But even Kumari, who recently moved to Mumbai, told an interviewer recently that she was so fed up with the “string of men between me and the music” that she set up her own label Godmother.