Saint Rantic

My friend happened to forward me this Tam Rap song:

As a confession (from someone who knows tamil a bit and someone who enjoys hip-hop) I must say I like this song and I dont mind hearing to it even if we judge them to be wannabes.

Rap in the US evolved in many ways in the US, with various versions such as Gansta Rap and Gansta-Funk (G-Funk) [Source:Wikipedia]. Rap has an important cultural side and its intricately linked with the life and linguistic style of African Americans. This fact is difficult to appreciate unless one interacts with them and tries to understand these intricacies. The language, the style, the dress, the culture basically comes right out of someone who lives in a ghetto. This is the reason why most of the Hip-Hop artists came right out of the ghettos.
Rap began its small begin as a natural outcome of the Afro-American lifestyle. The affluence and the fame of the successful HipHop artist help promote the more recent developments of the disco-graphy of the albums and also to a large extent the Ghetto lifestyle began to evolve into a hip-hop style sophistication, such as a “bling-bling” culture[source:Wikipedia]. Hip-hop thus had a market of its own, and hence a life of its own. It became something like a fad, a “fad” which people like my dad believed wont last long, but it did and it spread around the world. Local artists emerged as a result of the popularity of American rap, giving the same “rap” tunes but in thier own cultural style.

I listen to french rap as well. The group Bisso Na Bisso and the Congo Hip-hop artist Passi are some of my favourites. Here is another gem from Cheb Mami(of the “Desert Rose fame” and who, by the way, is one of the best “Rai” singers) and K-Mel which is one of my favourite songs (I dont understand a single word, but the tunes are just amazing):

Here is the LINK for the video in case you are not able to see it.
During my stay in Los Angeles and my interactions with a few young hip-hop singers here, I did notice that they were culturally very attached. They had a strong identity, which probably will never go away. Its the same with most “Rap” artist from any other culture.

This cultural attachment is what I want to bring about. Check out the Cheb Mami Video for example. Its good hip-hop and yet they dont have that “bling-bling” nature, the dress is mordern yet its NOT ghetto style. Contrast this with our Tam Rap video, and one just has to say that our brothers are just wannabes. The music is good. The lyrics are strong. But man, why do you have to throw away your cultural background and act as someone who you do not even understand! Even if one throws away his culture and dresses “casually”, its fine. But trying to be something that you are not and CANNOT be is something extremely stupid.

Why are we desis like this? Why are we wannabes in everything? Cant we define anything of our own. One need not have to be culturally bound to be creative, nor do we need to be a wannabe to be creative. Creativity is something inherent and it rings well with the concept of originality. If these people were singing that Hip-hop song in a desi dress, like a lungi and jubba/shirt I would have appreciated them more. I would have appreciated them even more if they did not show any cultural biases.

To all the talented young men and women out there: Please dont be wannabes, be yourself.