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[On 16th-19th January, 2019, Homegrown is throwing a first-of-its-kind music festival in Mumbai designed to celebrate the city’s vast and diverse music culture. Dive deep into a wide variety of dynamic workshops, exhibitions, curated tours, panels, pop-ups, performances and parties that promise to be inclusive of all kinds of tastes and people.
There’s something for everyone, click here to find what’s perfect for you.]
The genre of Hip hop bursts with storytelling and multiculturalism. Rap is an art form believed to have been born about 45 years ago as an underground movement in the streets of the Bronx, a neighbourhood in New York City in 1979. But, Akala, a British hip hop artist and founder of the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company, says that the history of hip hop goes “Beyond the stories that keep feeding us the common myth that people started rappin’ in the ‘70s… Hip hop needs to be understood, in its fullest context, not just in the ‘hood.”
After speaking with Yatindra Ingle, Assistant professor at University of Mumbai offering a new course on Hip Hop Studies, I’m sure he would agree with Akala. Yatin is currently pursuing an MBA after already completing a PhD in Mass Communication, Master’s degree in Metropolitan Journalism and Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. He describes himself as a rapper who hosts dance battles across the country and professor of Journalism and Mass Communication— in that order.
A connoisseur of hip hop and rap, Yatin told me that he wanted to bring its supremely rich cultural experience to the academic world of India. “In Asia, there is no college that teaches pop culture and hip hop. So, whatever we’re teaching here will be totally new and different to everyone,” he said proudly.
Listening to Yatin gush about his love and respect for hip hop and rap was fascinating. He told me about how hip hop lyrics are deeply meaningful because artists rap about politics, ethnic history, economics, and poverty. “Do you know about Divine? Or Naezy?” he asked me hopefully. But, when I let him down with my answer, he happily gave me a crash course on the history of western rap as a form of protest against systemic oppression and a medium of communication between groups of people looking to preserve their linguistic heritage.
The Indian hip hop sound is no different. From songs about poverty in slums and gullies to communal tension and caste, Indian rap and hip hop is an emerging art form that Yatin hopes to educate people about in his course at the University of Mumbai. “Indian identity is a major theme in the course. We will be studying rap videos and lyrics. We will even have famous Indian hip hop artists as guests talking about their personal experiences with economic struggle and religion,” he said.
Currently, Yatin is offering a 15-week long Certificate course that will launch on September 8, 2018, through a regular application and admissions process. “We have students from all over the country who have applied. It’s a first come, first serve basis. But, the students should be 12th standard pass,” he said. The course will include introductory topics, theoretical concepts like communication processes, and more complex analysis like “Hip hop Feminism and Activism” and “Race-ing Hip Hop (History and Politics of Race and Revolution).” Yatin is also including a performance element to the course, meaning that students will have the opportunity to organise or participate in rap and dance battles, visit underground performances, and experience India’s flourishing Hip hop culture first hand.
Yatin plans to convert this certificate course to about a year-long diploma course in the next year, and a Master’s in Hip Hop Studies by 2020. “The objective is to get the knack of how Hip hop culture is growing in villages, compare it to commercial and urban hip hop, and understand the influence and sense of community in the industry overall,” Yatin said.
Feature image by: Yatindra Ingle
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