Earning a rap sheet

In the ’90s hip-hop classic track Sky is the limit, popular American rapper Notorious B.I.G introduces himself saying he went ‘from ashy to classy’. In the hip-hop culture, the phrase today is considered legendary. If Indian hip-hop artiste Feyago had to plot his life’s graph in context to this phrase, he would only be starting off. The last seven years have been especially tough. He lost his family-owned resort in Orissa to a cyclone, most of the family money was spent in the treatment of his mother whom he eventually lost to a fire, and their property is still stuck
in litigation.

Yet, Feyago has battled all odds to chart a rather unusual journey to fame. Instead of taking the tried-and-tested route of making a name in the seven cities that form the music tour circuit in India — Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai — he chose to perform in the Northeast, Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. “I did my schooling in Darjeeling, so when I went there last year, at a party, I asked an organiser to give me the mic. At first he hesitated, but when I started rapping, the crowd went crazy. The next day he called and offered me Rs 3,000 a month to perform once every week,” says Feyago.

Instead of taking this experiment to Kolkata, where he is based, Feyago, decided to cold-call an organiser in Nepal, and try his luck in the exploding Nep-hop (the local hip-hop scene in Nepal) culture. His gamble worked. “Though Nepal has one of the fastest growing hip-hop scenes, they are all old-school rappers gathering in gardens to battle each other — the movement was still stuck on the streets. No one was rapping in clubs. That’s the gap I took advantage of,” says Feyago. He has experimented with his music too. Instead of creating originals, he performs covers of popular tracks, and changes the lyrics to Indianise the songs. So in his version of Macklemore’s Thrift shop, he has kept the beat intact, but raps about an expensive girlfriend, instead of the original track which talks of buying things from a Thrift shop.

The fact that he does not belong to the music scene in India is what’s helped him experiment. Growing up in a sheltered life at St Paul’s School, Darjeeling, Feyago would listen to acts such as Tupac and Notorious B.I.G in school, but was never part of any band. He then left for London to pursue a graduation in marketing. It was there that he truly fell in love with music. “I’d save up every last pound and buy tickets for hip-hop gigs,” says Feyago who has watched everyone from Jay Z to Wiz Khalifa in the UK.

In the second year of his course, he walked into the dean’s office and said he wanted to quit school to become a rapper. He managed to finish school after much coaxing from family and his teachers. But to sustain his hip-hop bug, Feyago was producing beats for friends who were rappers and running a small graphic design studio. Over the internet, he also learnt to shoot and edit videos. “I took a decision that I would not spend over Rs 200 on a video. I still borrow cameras, shoot and edit it myself,” he says.

“The first time I watched my video on TV, I was sitting with my family eating soya kebabs because we can’t afford meat. Imagine, I am on TV, and I can’t afford a decent meal,” he says. His fortunes seem to be changing though. In the last year, he has performed at a 100 shows, and his booking rates have gone from a Rs 3,000 a month to Rs 15,000 a gig and now he charges anywhere upwards of Rs 25,000. “My family has given me two years to figure my life out in the music scene. I think I am way ahead of schedule,” he says.

kevin.lobo@expressindia.com

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