Two years after a hip-hop enthusiast and media professor convinced a Vile Parle college to offer a course in the 1970s genre of African-American music, its alumni are readying to cut EPs and diving into research
Kavya (name changed on request) used to post quick raps and rhymes on social media. She says the hip-hop course gave her much-needed direction and wisdom about the genre. Pic/Nimesh Dave; une musician Mahesh Pawan’s perception of what hip-hop and lyricism are, have changed drastically since he signed up for the course, he says. Pic/M Fahim; When Dr Yatindra Ingle first took an interest in hip-hop, songs in the genre didn’t even play on music channels. The curriculum he designed for the course addresses this gap
Rudolph Pujary has the gift of the gab. A business development manager at one of Dubai’s largest logistics firms, he’s also an aspiring rapper. For the last four years, he has been active in the city’s fledgling hip-hop scene, through his crew Shilla 050, which once opened for a show by DIVINE and Raftaar. His own verses have been about his family and hustle.
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In early 2021, Pujary came across a certificate course on hip-hop offered by Vile Parle’s Usha Pravin Gandhi College of Arts, Science and Commerce. He was instantly drawn to it. “I knew about the more practical aspects of performing hip-hop, but I was curious about its background, about the context in which it was born and how it was nurtured in African American communities,” Pujary says. He was one of 300+ individuals who applied for the first batch of this course, spearheaded by Dr Yatindra Ingle—a professor of mass media at the college—who has long been clued into the hip-hop scene in Mumbai and India. Ingle’s interest is both academic as well as artistic; he has been mapping shifts in the genre, while also performing and hosting cyphers and underground rap battles.
Ingle and Dr Sanjay Ranade, an associate professor at Mumbai University, made headlines in 2018 when they designed a course on hip-hop that would be offered by the varsity—the very first of its kind in India. Though it was a watershed moment in Indian education and music, the pandemic put a spanner in the works and the course couldn’t take off.
It was UPG College that offered Ingle hope; he submitted a proposal which was keenly accepted by Principal Anju Kapoor. “We’re a college that encourages mass media and various kinds of performing arts. Many students today want to explore off-beat subjects and novel modes of self-expression. A lot of writing and content creation can be facilitated through this medium,” Kapoor says, adding that hosting the course online opened the doors to students outside India, too. Since 2021, it has taken the shape of a “value added” course, though Ingle hopes that someday, hip-hop will qualify for an elective like music courses do in universities outside India.
He designed the curriculum for this course himself, introducing students like Pujary to the five elements that make up the genre—MCing, DJing, breakdancing, graffiti and knowledge. A researcher of hip-hop, when Ingle began exploring the genre in the 2000s, he found little to no resources to learn from, especially since access to the Internet was limited. He wanted this course to fill the information gap he himself faced.
The first of two batches conducted so far was attended by 15 students and spanned 60 hours—comprising sessions on race, social movements, fashion, gender and even marketing. They gave students a historical and socio-political look into the origin of hip-hop and the veterans who have shaped it. The fee for this course was R8,000 for students who aren’t admitted in colleges under the Shri Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal, and Rs 7,000 for those who are.
Ingle notes that the niche and obscure nature of the course has meant that offering scholarships has not been possible thus far, but international collaborations with global universities and a growth in funding could change this. That being said, both batches featured students who supported each other, he says. Pujary, for example, came forward and funded part of the fee for a student in each edition, who is committed to studying hip-hop.
Though the course looks at the movement critically, Ingle consciously chose to bring in a majority of artiste, and not academicians, while selecting faculty members. “To me, it was important for the students to know of the realities experienced by artistes such as Ace (Abhishek Dhusia) and Am-B (Ambarin Kadri),” he explains.
Some of the assignments assigned to the students were interactive and creatively-inclined, such as putting together outfits inspired by hip-hop’s values and explaining each accessory’s importance. “The objective here was reflecting on their style and what they want to express,” Ingle says. In another assignment, the students had to take the plunge into a hip-hop artiste’s discography and write their own track, based on the information they found.
At the end of the course, the batch had to come together as a crew to create a track. They could take up roles that best suited them—dancer, producer, rapper—to create an original piece of music.
Elloit Cardozo, a fellow at Kolkata’s Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, has actively engaged in research about the genre since 2019. For him, listening to the lived experiences of artistes who have shaped Indian hip-hop was the highlight of the course. “As a researcher, it was interesting to listen to the perspectives of artistes who had embodied the cultural practices. I may read tonnes of books on the subject, but these people have lived it for at least a decade, if not longer. I listened to them talk about how they formed a spiritual connection to it; it’s not just dance or music to them, it’s a way of life,” he explains.
During the pandemic, Pune-based Mahesh Pawan tried his hand at battle rapping; he was part of WhatsApp groups comprising aspiring artistes who battled with each other over text messages, which were annotated. He enjoyed these virtual battles, but it was through the course that he learnt how battles play out in real life. “I know the basics of lyricism, but Ankur ‘Enkore’ Johar equipped us with the tools we need in our arsenal for real-life battles,” he explains.
The students emphasise the ways in which the course has changed their perspective towards hip-hop. Pawan recalls MC Manmeet Kaur’s classes, which challenged the notion that hip-hop had to be aggressive or cool and showcased how inspiration can be found in unusual places. “Kaur’s own music draws from nature. When she spoke to us about beat production, she showed us how she recorded sounds from nature to incorporate into her work,” he says.
Pujary learnt that there was more to the social context behind rap verses than the stereotypes of impoverishment associated with artistes in Mumbai, and bling with Delhi. “Akshay Poojary, aka Gravity, taught us about the fundamentals of lyricism and how words could be moulded into verses,” he says.
A 35-year-old who works in a logistics company in Mumbai and requested to stay anonymous for this article, speaks of her learnings about hip-hop as a culture and institution. “I realised that posting verses on social media is very different from imbibing it into my life. The course was also a reminder about the importance of gurus, and carrying forward legacies of those artistes who come before us.”
The students are also inspired to work harder at their own hip-hop careers. Pujary is looking forward to writing gospel and Biblical rap, while Pawan, who has been releasing new verses each Sunday, is planning to release an EP.
In January 2022, at the fourth meeting of the European Hip-hop Studies Network, three of the students including Cardozo presented a paper they co-authored, about their experience of the course. Through the paper, they ask what constitutes “legitimate” knowledge, and who determines its legitimacy—a question that is bound to emerge, should more colleges offer the course. Ingle himself has been invited to platforms like Manhattan’s Hip-hop Education Conference and the World Street Awards in Russia, to speak about how the course came into existence and his pedagogy.
Ingle looks to 2024 with plans of a third batch—one that makes space for more than 15 students, considering the consistently growing demand for the course. Students who apply for it can look forward to an updated curriculum and a bigger roster of instructors, including international artistes and academics. The coming year is also one where breaking, which first emerged in the 1970s and became a competitive dance form in the 2023 Asian Games, is set to have a moment at the Paris Olympics. As Indian institutions in hip-hop and artistes nurture Olympic dreams, Indian scholarship on the subject takes incremental steps forward too.
A brief history
Hip-hop emerged in the 1970s in the US, predominantly in New York’s African American neighbourhoods. Though most associate it with rap and stylised, rhythmic music, it is a cultural movement that encompasses graffiti, MCing, DJing and breakdancing, too. It borrows from blues, jazz, funk and disco, and has also assimilated elements from the cultures it has travelled to.
By the late 1980s, it became a mainstream genre in the US, and found a footing in India in the 1990s. Baba Sehgal, with his caricaturist rap, was one of the first names to be associated with the genre. For the next decade, it was still considered an underground movement in the country. In the last decade, DIVINE, Raftaar, KR$NA and Naezy began releasing music, earning great popularity. Today, India’s hip-hop scene is as vast as its linguistic diversity, with artistes and crews like Arivu, Swadesi and Prabh Deep singing in Tamil, Marathi and Punjabi about autobiographical and social themes.
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