Catch the wave of Carnatic hip hop, fuelled by the rise of virtual spaces, and set to the beat of the mridangam, ghatam and kanjira
In the musical world, Scarborough conjures up images of Simon, Garfunkel, and those four most melodious herbs. Across the Atlantic Ocean, its lesser known namesake, a Toronto neighbourhood known for its confluence of Asian cultures, inspires a serenade in Tamil music producer Yanchan’s newly released EP, Scarborough Beat Tape.
With 10 instrumental tapes, Yanchan immerses hyperlocal details of his Canadian hometown in a decidedly Tamil flavour — through the soundscape of freestyling mridangam and ghatam.
Seen as a traditionally Carnatic instrument, the mridangam is having a moment in hip hop and rap. What we see then is a chemistry between a genre that has historically sought to rebel against the establishment and one that is very much the establishment.
Carnatic hip hop has found an audience in the Indian diaspora in the US, Canada, Singapore and Malaysia. Yanchan’s work in this genre is demonstarted best in the Mrithangam Raps series, in collaboration with Tamil Canadian rapper Shan Vincent De Paul.
“I grew up with a foundation in Carnatic music. Until high school, that was all I listened to. When I was 13, I lived in Chennai for three months to learn the mridangam from my guru, Neyveli B Venkatesh,” says Yanchan.
He grew up listening to Drake. “I would play hip hop in my car and analyse the rhythmic patterns and beats. I started noticing similarities between these beats and the ones I played on the mridangam. They sounded similar to grooves in Adi talam, Rupaka talam…” says the 21-year-old, who calls his sound a combination of Carnatic music, Tamil film music and hip hop.
Mridangam gets the spotlight
“The instrument never tells you what genre it belongs to,” says Viveick Rajagopalan, a mridangam exponent based in Mumbai. As the founder of the Ta Dhom project, Viveick collaborates with vernacular rappers from the city to create a sub genre of Indian hip hop — as seen in Gully Boy’s ‘India 91’.
Viveick wanted to pull the mridangam out of the layers of percussion it is hidden in, and make it the principal sound, moving it from supporting role to lead. “I took those drum patterns heard in Western music and played them on the mridangam, which gave rise to the collective sound of the Ta Dhom project,” he says.
Since 2015, he has been meeting young rappers and sharing the basics of konnakol and talam with them, to provide a foundation for the rhythmic poetry of urban rap. “I didn’t want to come in with the traditional approach of Carnatic music (with its rituals),” says Viveick.
“What was interesting to me was that instead of aping the West, these guys were rapping in their mother tongue. I wanted to push (that Indian-ness) even more. For instance, a lot of rappers still have scatting and phrasing that’s typically Western,” he says.
Ta Dhom Project founded by Viveick Rajagopalan
| Photo Credit: Swati Jain
As a rapper, your flow and intonation is what makes you stand out. And according to Viveick, an understanding of konnakol gives you a better understanding of rhythmic structures and helps you write phrases in more interesting ways. “It’s like this: for a layperson, a chair is a chair. But when a carpenter sees it, he sees its parts: its height when you’re sitting, when you’re standing.”
Rappers Swadesi, MC Tod Fod, MC Mawali have been part of this project. The project’s second EP is set to be released and will feature MC Dehat rapping in Bhojpuri.
“If you can count the beats, count the gap, you can write with more intention,” says Tamil rapper Kalaivanan Kannan, who goes by MC Kalai. “I don’t learn the raag, just the taal and the konnakol, the time structures, meters, the gati (flow).” The added knowledge also makes it easier for him to collaborate with other independent bands.
The universality of it
Classical music has spilled over to other genres before. Pandit Ravi Shankar, and now his daughter, Anoushka, have brought Hindustani to raga rock. Some hip hop songs by Missy Elliot and Kid Cudi have used Indian classical undercurrents. Tamil film music regularly builds on Carnatic; as proven by icons from Ilaiyaraaja to AR Rahman.
“We want to show how versatile Carnatic music is,” days Mahesh Raghvan, of Carnatic 2.0, the group that blends Carnatic music with “whatever is fresh, anything to do with pop culture, electronic music, and hip hop.” Their experiments led them to writing ‘Mylapore Rap’ last year.
In the past year, however, the rise of virtual spaces brought on by the lockdowns has also increased the accessibility to Carnatic music, bringing it out of kutcheris and sabhas. “Learning Carnatic music for four to five years also gives you a good foundation for whatever genre you want to try next,” says Mahesh.
In Washington DC, singer-songwriter Hrishi Balaji had a similar realisation in high school. In June, the 25-year-old rose to Internet fame with his Carnatic remixes of pop songs. Hrishi’s freestyle swaras over BTS’ ‘Butter’ and The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’, among others have gone viral on TikTok and Instagram. “I want to create a sense of familiarity and a sense of shock for the Western ear, while being true to both sensibilities,” says Hrishi.
It is hip hop’s subversive nature that allows space for experimentation, believes Viveick. “The whole rap culture is raw and non-conformist, so there is no template on how you have to play, or how it should sound,” he says.
This subversion also has to reflect in its lyrics for a song to be true to hip hop’s history of standing up to power. When Shan and Yanchan rap, they talk about their families who had to flee Jaffna during the Sri Lankan Civil War. MC Mawali and Swadesi, while rapping in the style of konnakol, are talking about overcoming systemic obstacles.
“Emotions are universal,” says Yanchan. “With any song, your goal should be to speak your truth, speak from your experience, and hope that it connects to your audience.”
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