WORD on the STREET

From writing songs that scathingly cut across social barriers to carving out a unique niche – DIVINE shares his vision for the future and the journey that brought him here

- ARMAN KHAN

It was the early 90s. The streets of Bombay carried starry-eyed dreams of the promise that Bollywood held. The government had just announced sweeping liberalisation reforms and the Indian markets had been thrown open to anyone with even an iota of ambition. The air mirrored the general euphoria in effect, thanks to this new wave of financial and personal freedom. Bombay, assuaged by financial scams and riots, finally had something to look forward to – living up to its tag of being the financial capital of the country.

It was in this new India, when the country was being ushered into a future where dreams didn’t have a price, that Vivian Fernandes, was raised. Does the name not ring a bell? You might know him better as the award-winning rapper, DIVINE. The artist’s interest in rap and hip-hop stemmed from a most unassuming source – a T-shirt. A friend of his wore one with 50 Cent’s album Get Rich or Die Tryin' emblazoned on it, to school. This was his introduction to the genre, almost an initiation into the hardcore world of rap. The same friend also gave him his first MP3 CD with hip-hop music on it, which inspired him to start rapping. He drew inspiration from his own experiences and went on to become the first Indian rapper tobe featured on Spotify’s Times Square billboard in New York City for his album, Punya Paap.

MEMORY MAPS

“My earliest childhood memory of any kind of music was Bollywood,” the 31-year-old rapper, born in the Andheri area of Mumbai, says. “There was nothing else around at that time. All of us would spend hours jamming to the latest Bollywood hits then.”

Eventually, when DIVINE started going to school, the magic of CDs enamoured him. The same multi-chrome CDs, used to make everything from decor to toys, became the first vessel for the makings of a globally popular musical star.