Badshah: ‘Hip-hop pushes you to be you, minus the facades’

New Delhi, Aug 11  Indian Hip-hop titan and rapper Badshah has spoken about the genre of Hip-Hop, which turned 50 on Friday. He said that it is a montage made up of many cultures and communities and it is one of the greatest art forms ever.

Talking to IANS exclusively on the occasion, Badshah, whose real name is Aditya Prateek Singh Sisodia, revealed what Hip-hop means to him.

He said: “Hip-hop is a montage. It’s made up of many cultures and communities and it is one of the greatest art forms ever. It’s become the epicenter of pop culture, whether it’s the sneaker culture or street art, they all trace back to hip-hop. Back in the 1980s, everyone thought hip-hop was a subculture that would lose its sheen.”

He added: “Not only has the genre reinvented, but it is also reinventing other aspects. The social, political, economic, educational, and cultural systems – hip-hop has impacted all of these spheres, transforming as it has been transformed. In hip-hop, when someone does it, then that becomes a trend.”

He shared his opinion on what makes hip-hop extraordinary. The musician says it helps in finding yourself.

“Hip-hop pushes you to be you, minus the facades. I feel like in the pursuit of finding yourself, hip-hop helps me because that culture says, you’ve got to be authentic. The genre is flexible enough to be whatever any artist wants it to be,” said the rapper.

He added that Hip-hop can be political, heated, fun-loving, emotive, or poetic and yet be very relatable and authentic at its very core.

Badshah, whose track ‘Genda Phool’ came out to be commercially one of the most successful, says a lot of Hip-hop artists are not being Raw, which he feels is lacking in the space in India.

“A lot of artists aren’t being raw and real with their artistry, and are not being able to find a balance between creative satisfaction and marketing dictates. Streaming numbers and chart success are not the ultimate benchmark of success and should not define an artist’s music-making process.”

What do you think about the future of hip-hop in India?

Badshah said: “The future of hip hop is in India. Indian hip hop music is no longer regional or underground and we are headed towards a revolution.”

Before being this top musician that he is today, the 37-year-old rapper was living a different life as he enrolled as a math student at the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi before moving to civil engineering in Chandigarh, where he was exposed to new Punjabi music which promoted him to take on “rap” writing.

Was it tough to make everyone understand the kind of music you were doing or wanted to do?

Badhshah agrees it was extremely difficult.

“When I was growing up, it was extremely difficult to think big as I hailed from a middle-class milieu. But music gave me the courage to dream and I didn’t care much about what others felt because it almost felt like hip hop was my inner sanctum.”

“Today, that’s all changed, I want to be the first guy to have a concert on the moon. I was the first artist to shoot a music video on top of the O2 Arena in England. In my early days, it was tough for me to say ‘I can build from rock bottom’ but hip hop was a test for my testimony.”