After a decade of nill public awareness, hip-hop in Karachi has finally become the niche that every artist wants to be a part of
By Fatima Anwer, Moiz Chaudhry, Muzhira Nayani, Sahrish Ahmed and Sarwat Ahmed
Karachi: It’s a Saturday night - the city is enjoying late night dinners, movies and shopping, while a bunch of youngsters are writing lyrics, making compositions and inventing beats. Instead of the usual high heels and leather jackets, these youngsters are clad in American jerseys, caps and even ‘burqas’. From Lyari to Defence, these youths are scattered like leaves throughout the city. A single spark of fire in one leaf could ignite an explosion of rap throughout the city of lights, drowning Karachi in its flames in a nick of time.
“Hip-hop is a powerful form of protest music that can help spread awareness on why people are frustrated,” said Virinder Kalra, a sociology professor at the Manchester University who has extensively researched on South Asian music and culture. The wave of hip hop music has taken a leap among the youth of Pakistan. Although rap has thrived for more than three decades, it was the Bollywood movie Gully Boy that played a vital role in reigniting this passion in the youth. Rap, like any other art form, is a medium of expression. It’s called the language of the rebellious and the outcasts.
From the starting point of its ongoing history, hip hop music or rap, as it has become known, has confronted different impediments. At first, rap was considered as a passing prevailing fashion, an energizer and for a brief period, a dark social structure that steamed off the melodic energies of urban, dark-minded teenagers. As it ended, it became clear that rap was digging in for the long haul, a perpetual apparatus in a dark ghetto youth's melodic scene, the responses changed from rejection to denigration, and rap music went under assault from both high contrast quarters. Rap, was certainly here to stay.
Most people attracted to rap are youth. In Pakistan, rap has enjoyed a rise over the last ten years, with groups and solo artists emerging every now and then. However, some of the household names in the rap industry of Karachi are Talha Anjum and Talha Yunus (Young Stunners), Faris Shafi, Lyari Underground and several others.
Rap’s truest essence
“Most people believe that rap is all about hot chicks, cool cars and a lot of slangs. That is exactly what rap is not. Having a cool vibe or demeanour does not make you a rapper. Your connection with your lyrics and the audience does. If you notice, most of the rappers are just nerds who can write really well. Rap is not just rhyming - it has physics, mathematics, poetry and what not in it. Most rappers that you see are really intelligent people. It’s just the people who limit this art to cool looks and glittery jackets,” Sami explained.
Burhan and Sami, a 22-year-old duo of rappers from the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (Szabist) and the Institute of Business Management (IoBM) chose to rap because of its blunt form of expression. “I believe that in rap you can express yourself fully as compared to normal songs. Everything in rap is more of those screams of rebellion. From song lyrics to stage presence, everything speaks in rap,” Burhan confessed.
Burhan and Sami are two young boys in university, yet to figure out what to do with their future. However, rap is the only certainty in their life. The boys started rapping five years ago and have come a long way ever since. They now have a band that consists of guitarists, pianists and drummers. Like every other artist, both of them want to produce something that is in its truest essence, rap.
Talha Yunus from Young Stunners has similar thoughts regarding the genre. “The lyrics can't be ghost-written by someone else - you lose the raw feel and connection with the audience if you don't say what you really feel. You can go back and listen to my first song, and you'll find some kid's emotions in them, and you can listen to my songs today and feel how I've grown up over the years with my songs. My rap songs narrate an unspoken journey of my career if you listen close,” Talha shared.
The Lyari Movement
Other rappers in the city of lights who have downright defied the concept of ‘camera appearance, glittery jackets and a wannabe attitude’ are the rappers from Lyari. Lyari is famous for its notorious reputation when it comes to gang wars, guns and violence. However, there’s one more thing Lyari has produced in abundance: talent. And one of those talents is rap. The town has produced masterpieces like Lyari Underground, Sami Amiri and the recent, Eva B.
In 2010, a group of young boys who met online came together to share their lyrical skills and talent to form a hip-hop rap group, “Boyz in da Hood”. Today, the group goes by the name “Lyari Underground”. The group initially made Balochi Rap that gained popularity within their vicinity of Kalakot, Lyari. However, the group hit it big with their song ‘Lyari Underground’. The Balochi rap hit the market with a storm becoming a household name in the world of rap.
“We hid our identities until 2015 after which we finally came out in public. The reason behind this camouflage was the fear of gangsters in Lyari. Had these gangs known our real identities they would have had forced us to make songs for them ridiculing other gangs. We rap because we want to become representatives of our locality. We use our rap to condemn violence and instil peace in our community,” DJ Khalifa revealed.
Another rapper from Lyari who has taken the hip hop market in the city by surprise is the female rapper, producing rap under the pseudonym Eva B. Eva has been rapping for the last five years with her cousin Meer, who is also a rapper. However, her first song came out earlier this year titled ‘Gully Girls’, a female rendition of the famous ‘Apna Time Ayega’ from the movie Gully Boy. The song roared in the market because of its lyrics that are every girl’s questions to the society that doesn’t let her grow. The song’s opening lyrics are “Jab zindagi apni hay to marzi doosron ki kyun”.
Along with her name, Eva chose to hide her identity from the world as well. She raps with her veil on, and thus has been nicknamed as the Secret Super Star of Karachi by Fifi Haroon, a reporter at BBC.
“The first time I heard rap, I was fourteen. At first, I couldn’t decipher a word because rap is really fast. I instantly fell in love with this style of music. At that time, I didn’t even know this was called rap. My cousin Meer told me about it and elucidated on the entire science behind it. In the truest sense, my journey kick-started from there. I would download entire albums of Eminem and Tupac Shakur and memorize entire lyrics even if I didn’t understand a word,” Eva reminisced.
For Eva, the journey was way tougher and challenging as compared to many other rappers in the city. She blames her gender for this struggle. When Eva discovered her true potential as a rapper, the first hurdle she faced was a downright boycott from her family.
“When I told my family that I wanted to rap, my father and my brothers instantly said no. They told me that rapping would bring nothing but disgrace to the family. Demotivated, I gave in to them and decided not to pursue this passion. It was Meer who talked to my parents and my siblings. His constant persistence led to my family finally allowing me to rap. However, I couldn’t use my real name nor could I reveal my identity,” the rapper said.
Eva got her first song from Patari which she performed with Zari Faisal. Making a track independently is very difficult for Eva due to the lack of resources in her locality. Lyari does not have any recording studios; all Eva has are few apps on her phone like FL Studio and Beatwave that give her a standard beat on which she can place her lyrics and rap.
While shedding light on the obstacles she faced before her first track, Eva told us, “The first single I did with Patari was a difficult one. I had written the lyrics but rapping on a beat without any technical help was like a nightmare. With zero options left, I recorded my song sitting inside my cupboard on a mobile phone. It was tough, but we somehow worked it out.”
In the small time she started rapping, Eva has garnered a fair number of fans following from both genders. Socially active, Eva makes sure she remains in touch with her fans through Facebook and Instagram live chats. In all these interactions, Eva comes across one question repeatedly; when will you reveal your face and identity to us?
“As far as my real name is concerned, I know for a fact that I can’t hide it for a long period of time. However, my veil is something I would never give up. No matter wherever I go, or whatever I do. My veil is something I like to keep close to me. As a rapper, there are few things that become a part of one’s personality, it becomes the rapper’s identity. For me, that thing is my veil. I want people to know me for my lyrics, and my veil keeps that element alive for me,” she answered.
Beyond barriers
Unlike popular belief, rap is not just for youngsters. Every now and then, several videos surface from the internet showing people rapping, from rickshaw drivers to waiters and students. Rap is a form of expression that is not restricted to any age or number. It spreads beyond socio-economic classes.
Talha Anjum sums up beautifully on what every rapper feels towards his/her affection for rap, “Rap is my diary. I express myself via my rap. It's an outlet for me and that in itself is my motivation. Whether I'm feeling happy or sad, I can write it down and collect my thoughts. I think I will lose a part of my identity if I'm asked not to rap anymore.”
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