An Octave Higher

StaccatO beats paired with infectious riffs open a song,The Journey,in a video that has been doing the rounds on YouTube these days. A few seconds later,an instrumental warm up introduces 26-year-old Borkung Hrangkhawl aka BK. His slang is crisp,sarcasm sharp and the problems of Tripura,his home state,evident. The singer raps “Don’t hate the state/ Cause I’m truly embraced/To blow like a grenade”. For most looking at this,it may seem like an attempt to grab eyeballs,but for Hrangkhawl (his tribe name that he uses as his surname),it is a way to steer attention towards his state. “This is how I reach out to the masses and tell them the truth about what’s happening,” says Hrangkhawl,whose track has garnered over a million hits online.

For someone whose journey has been defined by his growing up years in Kamlachhera,a village in Tripura,Hrangkhawl calls his passion for music a natural progression. He is the son of a leader of the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT). Ethnic strife and issues in the state was what Hrangkhawl grew up with. As a teenager,he would go to remote areas with his father and attend rallies just before the elections. “I saw my father struggling to fight for the rights of our people. I was motivated because his purpose in life was to fight for them. So I decided to follow in his footsteps,but on a slightly different path,” says Hrangkhawl. He was exposed to pop,rock,jazz,blues and hip hop in school.

Hrangkhawl did not go via a record company and chose YouTube as his platform. “You can upload your videos and can be assured that people are going to comment. However,I did not expect the response I got,” says the musician,whose songs often deal with racism and discrimination.

Before The Journey,Hrangkhawl released a song titled The Roots (Chini Haa) (“our land” in Kokborok,a dialect of Tripura). Those in the virtual world were swaying to “I’m from Tripura you fakers/ That’s the first thing you ought to know/ I did grow from Dhalai district and I need no passport”. Hrangkhawl says that it was poverty and the lack of education,homes and employment that prompted him to make this track.