Did you know of India’s underground hip-hop movement? No? Watch rapper Hard Kaur’s documentary
Kaur’s new album is a confluence of 30 Indian hip-hop musicians.
She’s often been referred to as the “rapping queen of Bollywood” and probably justly so. However, Hard Kaur is trying to turn her image round and re-brand herself as a serious rapper and hip-hopper – and break free from the shackles of Bollywood – with The Rising MixTape Vol I, her new album, and a documentary on Indian rap.
Beyond Bollywood and film music in other languages, classical music, and the folk tradition, there’s a fast-growing independent music scene in India today. And hip-hop, one of its components, often operates away from full view – for instance, there is an entire hip-hop movement stemming from Dharavi in Mumbai.
So Hard Kaur aka Taran Kaur Dhillon decided to reach out to the ocean of underground Indian rappers and collaborate with them on her album, which came out in August, 2017. The album featured 30 Indian artists, including Tony Sebastian, Shah Rule, Illa Straight, Su Real, Balan Kashmir, MC Zani, and Apeksha Dandekar.
The documentary (above) gives a peek into the making of the album, while focusing largely on the hip-hop music scene in India and its growth.