RAPPER’S REPUBLIC

Kash is planning to sell merchandise like caps and t-shirts bearing his logo through his official website. “I don’t want to put a donate button on my website.” He feels if selling something helps him to carry on with his mission of spreading the message of pain and suffering witnessed by Kashmiris, then he won’t mind it at all.

But the people aware of Kash’s style of rap think he has mellowed his tone since ‘I Protest’. “I haven’t changed my music. It is pure emotion. In 2010, there was a situation that needed direct response. But my music is no less direct. Now I talk in terms of ideas, metaphors and storytelling which is our tradition,” insists Kash.

THE JOURNEY

The defiant MC Kash is well aware of the perils of being a rebel in a conflict zone like Kashmir. “Looking back was not an option for me as I had already taken a vow,” said Kash. Before ‘I Protest’ became popular and Kash became a well known face on Youtube and other social networking sites, the hip-hop rap was unknown to a large number of youngsters in Kashmir.

But one cannot completely detach rap from Kashmiri culture as LadiShah – a highly lyrical form of story-telling that involves little or no musical instruments for performance, which is often political and uses satire to spread the message, is already popular in Kashmir.

Like LadiShah, Kash’s lyrics reflect what is happening on the streets of Kashmir. What he sees and raps is often in conflict with the state and its version of events. However, it was not the political situation in Kashmir that developed Kash’s passion for rapping. “I just wanted to speak fast and rhyme words at the end, that is how I got started,” said the young rapper.

He grew up listening to English songs from his father’s huge collection of tapes. “Initially, I used to imitate different rappers,” confessed Kash. But it was a track from The Beastie Boys’ titled ‘No Sleep till Brooklyn’ that introduced him to the hip hop rap genre of music. “He was speaking so fast, and rhyming rhythmically so well. It sounded amazing the first time I heard it,” he recalls.

In 8th standard, after being inspired by The Beastie Boys, Kash started bunking tuition classes to go to a particular music shop in Lal Chowk to buy English records. “I became good friends with the shop owner,” he remembers.

There he was introduced to Eminem and 2Pac. “The rebel nature of their songs caught my attention,” said Kash. He loved Eminem and 2Pac equally. But it was 2Pac who really shaped Kash’s raw passion. It was 2Pac’s famous single titled ‘Dear Mama’, which he wrote in homage to his mother that evolved the young Kashmiri rapper out of his infancy as a hip hop artist.

2Pac, who talks about how the system treats black people in America through his songs found an admirer in Kash. “I could relate to 2Pac’s rebellion as he talked about police brutality and slavery. For me, Kashmiris are also like slaves who were sold by British rulers,” said Kash.

In 10th standard, Kash wrote his first song. “It happened while I was attending a class and I was writing this poem in my notebook when my teacher caught me. I had to literally eat the pages to save myself from his wrath,” he recalls.

He had to wait one more year to realize his dream of recording his first song. The song titled ‘My Game’ (which is an American street slang meaning, it’s my life) was finally recorded using a friends computer and his microphone. “It was filled with street slangs. I was imitating as I was yet to find my own style,” said Kash. The song was uploaded on a music sharing website called ReverbNation.

But the young artist was not happy with what he was doing. He wanted to create a style of his own and make his art meaningful. Then an unfortunate incident changed MC Kash as a person and an artist forever and gave him his direction and meaning in life as a rapper. From then onwards, he knew exactly what he wanted to rap about.

In January 2010, the death of a childhood acquaintance, Inayat Khan, who was killed near Maisuma while returning home from tuitions, left lasting mark on young Kash’s mind and changed his idea of life forever. It changed him as a rapper too. “He was first shot in the leg, then run over by a police vehicle and finally trampled upon by men in uniform. When I saw his body, he had jackboot marks over his chest,” recalls Kash. —