One of Madhura Ghane’s most vivid childhood memories is how her grandmother used to sing her folk songs. Although she was too young to fully understand them, the power of the words stayed with her, even when her family moved from her native village in Maharashtra in rural India to the city of Kalyan, near Mumbai. They have shaped her life ever since.
In college, Ghane, now 28, began writing her own poetry, and in 2019, she was inspired to write her first rap song, in response to a mass protest against new farming laws seen as threatening India’s age-old agrarian traditions. “I uploaded that first song on my social media account. It had only a few verses and at that time I didn’t have much of a following. However, my friends and family really appreciated my work,” she told The Satyashodhak, an Indian newsletter. Yet it was moving back to her ancestral village during the pandemic that inspired Ghane to write what she considers to be her best rap song to date, Jungle Cha Raja.
You wave the flag of progress
I raise nature with pride
…We rule the forest
The true guardian of the land
Trained (and still working) as an engineer, the contrast between Ghane’s city and country life could scarcely have been more marked. It inspired Ghane, also known by her rap name Mahi G., to write a song about the crucial role played by her people, the Adivasis, an indigenous tribe, in protecting the region’s dwindling forests.
They call us backward
development left us behind
No hunger for cities,
just the village on our mind
“Returning to live within the tribal community, the experience of that lifestyle, the culture in harmony with the forest, the water, the land, and even the struggles, it instilled a strong appreciation for my roots,” Ghane says.
Her video of Jungle Cha Raja, which shows the people of Ghane’s community herding livestock, gathering food and performing traditional dances in traditional dress, was produced by Rapboss, a rap artist with tribal roots. “He has helped me throughout my music journey and brought my vision and words to a much wider audience,” she said. Indeed, the rap song has garnered millions of views collectively on YouTube, Instagram and other social media platforms.
The song’s success prompted a commission from Greenpeace India for World Environment Day earlier this year. The result was Heatwave, which addresses the impact of global warming on the millions of Indians who work outdoors. “Heatwaves aren’t just a weather update,” Ghane told Greenpeace India. “They’re a daily reality for millions who work under the sun, with no protection, no spotlight. This wasn’t about making a song. It was about amplifying voices that are constantly ignored.”
His back burns in the kilns,
his blood boils in the scorching sun
The one whose sweat built your house,
he himself wanders homeless
A long history of the spoken word
Hip hop and rap originated in the Bronx in the 1970s among the Black community. Yet it makes sense that it has found a growing audience in India, which has a long history of spoken-word poetry. But it wasn’t until 2019 that the genre was pushed into the mainstream by the popular Bollywood movie “Gully Boy,” about a kid from a Mumbai slum who dreams of rap stardom.
A few years on, while men still dominate the hip-hop charts, India’s female rappers are gaining a different kind of traction through songs that address questions of identity, the environmental crisis and women’s safety.
Read full story on the Persistent
0
0