Poetry for The People: The Counter-Cultural Significance of Malayalam Rap

Abstract

Rap music, a sub-genre of Hip-Hop music, that evolved out of the African American community in The United States of America during the late 1970s, is a musical genre that has spread its influence across the globe, including India and specifically in the State of Kerala. But how does such a complex and youthfully vigorous art form fit into the specific socio-political and cultural contexts of Kerala? This dissertation attempts to trace the comparatively short but bustling history of the rise of Malayalam Rap, in order establish the place it occupies today, with regards to both the wider context of Hip-Hop culture, as well as the narrower but equally important contexts of its birthplace, Kerala.

Essentially, going against the grain of conventional art, Malayalam rap and its practitioners have ushered in an independent art form, adopted from the West and reshaped to fit the needs of Kerala’s culture.The focus is on the literary, artistic and technical aspects of Malayalam rap, in an attempt to legitimize it as a modern, radical form of poetry and to refute certain misconceptions about rap and Hip-hop as a culture that has infamously garnered a bad reputation. The dissertation argues that Malayalam Rap music is a more accessible form of poetry, which has become apopular platform thatvoices the voiceless, the historically silenced classes, and flourishes as an independent counter-culture that opposes and does not fear the threats of commercialization.