Street Academics: This Music Collective Is The New Face of Malayalam Hip-Hop

Kochi-based hip-hop collective ‘Street Academics’ has been at the fore of a musical revolution that is sweeping across the country. At a time when dissent has come under political scrutiny, artists and creatives from across the country are exploring alternative platforms through which their voices can reach the masses.

Street Academics was a nascent vision in the year 1999 that was born out of an interest for slam poetry.It was only by the year 2009 that the collective took shape as an organised six-member crew and released their debut album ‘Loop’.

Inspired by the likes of Indian vernacular rappers such as Yogi B (Tamil), Street Academics too discovered their own niche where politics, philosophy and poetry converged to create powerful music. The crew is also one of the very first bilingual hip-hop collective that emerged in South India as early as 2009.

With prominent folktronica influences, Street Academics work consciously to create music that educates and resonates with their immediate community of Malayalis. The crew also went on to release ‘Hara Hara’, a powerful track that questions the government and is socially driven, this song was also performed during the CAA protests that took place in Kozhikode in late 2019.

Besides the crew’s native tongue, their latest multilingual EP also has verses in English and Tamil. As they expand across South India, their vision is to perform in multiple Indian cities and prepare their members for solo releases.

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