Rap it up!

In the town for a performance at the Chandigarh Carnival,Bohemia spitted fury. “Whoever said Bally Sagoo made me or discovered me or Universal Music made me a star here,is lying. Bally used me as a hype man. As for the ‘making of a star’ claim,no one did anything except act as distributors for my music. I have 100 per cent creative control,even in the art and design department. I shipped sealed music CDs of mine ready to for distribution to Bally and Universal,nothing more,” says the rapper,who prefers to give the credit to Akshay Kumar and BBC’s

Asia Network who played his first song from his first album on UK top ten and labeled him as the Punjabi Rapper. “I’m from the streets of California,a high school drop out who left home at the age of 16 after I lost my mother. It’s that life of drugs,police chase,mafia,drama,depression,confusion that reflects in my music,” Bohemia,Interestingly,draws a lot of inspiration from Mirza Ghalib. “Look at history,it’s full of rap music — boliyan are an example,shayari,tukbandi,kafia — that’s what I love about rap. It’s modern,shayari,raw,real and rooted. It’s devoid of any raag,taal or structured classical form. It’s representative of a culture,and one has few seconds on stage to entice you with it,” for him,DJ music is a clash of music,a bad copy and London is full of such borrowed music claiming to be hip hop. But rap,now that has soul. “It has been my only therapy for years now. It’s an open platform which relates to and embraces a culture,and not bothers much with the techniques and turns of music. You see,hip hop is a culture,and rap music is a representation of that culture,” he clarifies. Keeping this at the top,he plans to educate and create awareness about this music,and for the same has come up with YS Productions (www.ysevents.in) in India and California along with Yogesh Dixit specifically designed for those interested in hip hop. “It will help street poets of the world,given them a platform and not let the Bally Sagoos of the music world steal credit,” he speaks his mind. Like they say,it’s a rap.