JOIN USWhen you see a pothole outside your home, you often blame the government’s inefficiency and hurl abuses at the contractor who used substandard material to construct the road! But here is a boy who takes it up as his inspiration to write and rap a song, to bring awareness, but with a creative twist.
Popular by the name of Prozpekt, 25-year old Krishna Kaul, a graduate of Hansraj College has gained more fame for rapping on socially relevant themes than his other songs.
“I started listening to rap songs at four,” says Krishna who feels that this genre doesn’t need a lot of “technical skills or training in music. It is mostly the lyrics and your voice that make a rap.” So at a time when others of his age were playing, he used to swing to numbers of Kris Kross, Public Enemy and Armie Hammer.
“I just took it as fun music then but by the time I was in school, I started making my own songs. It was only a hobby then,” he shares adding that it was an influence of listening to these songs that he became conscious of his liking for the genre much later.
“By the time I was 14, I started experimenting but found my compositions to be bad and left rapping. But during my History Hons at Hansraj, the Americans waged war against Taliban and it became my inspiration for a rap on ‘peace’,” shares Krishna who since then started rapping serious on issues.
“Rap music originally evolved as a harbinger for change at a time when blacks started raising their voice against oppression. Rappers in India are influenced by hip hop but have forgotten the true aim of rap music,” explains Krishna who performed at several college fests but realised that fewer people could relate to English raps.
“I once sang a Hindi rap for my friends when we were on our way to the studio to record an English song. They liked it and it motivated me create more raps in Hindi. The image that people have in India about raps is the one created by Baba Sehgal, but rap is not only about being funny!”
Krishna thus created songs on politics. One of his songs Kaisa mera desh post the Commonwealth corruption scandal in 2010 was a hit and became one among the most watched music videos in India, then. He also shot a rap during the Lok Pal rally and released in online. His song Khatarnak has been released by Universal music and of late he has started exploring socially relevant issues.
He doesn’t shy away from taking names specially in his politically charged songs. “All I want is to bring a change! If the political system in our country changes then everything changes,” he says full of angst for the system but acknowledges that “it will change but over time!”
“My new song Vijay is on the life of a child labourer. We see children working all around us but are unable to bring about social change. I created it to evoke people’s attention to this social issue,” he shares adding that “songs can bring about a change. When you put out music like this and people appreciate it, it does set an example.”