Meet Reble: The Rapper Redefining Bollywood’s Soundtrack with Dhurandhar

Part of what gives 24-year-old Reble the edge comes from her point of origin. She isn’t a product of the typical industry channels used to find and record musicians. She comes from the independent music circuit, where her music found its first audience online. She didn’t train herself to fit a mould, thus the risk-taking, pushing boundaries and an ability to work across diverse music. She was spitting bars confidently for over half a decade when Sachdev discovered her online. “Everybody who was a part of the whole process in Dhurandhar, including Aditya and Sha (Sachdev), has always given everybody (including fellow rappers Hanumankind and Tsumyoki) a lot of freedom and flexibility. And I think that’s why the songs came out really well. Everybody was able to do it the way they would have done it for themselves. There was the story and the emotion one was trying to tap into but no rigidity about anything. And that was the best part,” says Reble, in a Zoom conversation with The Indian Express from Guwahati, where she now lives and hours after she performed at the Barsapara Stadium ahead of the IPL match between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals. She also alleged mismanagement and technical failure at the concert, which she wrote on Instagram, was her “worst performance ever”.

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Her petite frame, gentle way of speaking and soft bangs might seem unassuming but her fiery rap can overwrite this first impression quite quickly.

Reble, whose actual name is Daiaphi Lamare, was born and raised away from the spotlight and industry networks in Meghalaya’s lush West Jaintia Hills, a place marked by heavy monsoons, a slower life and a quieter landscape. Her paternal grandfather named her Daiaphi. “In Khasi, it means ‘I’ll take care of you’,” she says with a small laugh. She never identified with the name nor did she like “being told what to do”. She was always pushing against boundaries, starting from what girls are and aren’t supposed to do. “You are not supposed to be loud. Don’t speak too much. Don’t know too much. If you do, then it becomes annoying. If you say too much, it also becomes annoying. I always felt I didn’t fit into societal norms,” says Reble, who adds how it is a “waste of existence” if anybody is “just trying to conform.” “Not my ideology,” she says.

Reble began rapping at 11 and the moment it clicked, she figured she was on to something. “I felt it was so easy to rap. You just have to speak. But with some cadence and personality,” says Reble, who was about 13 when a friend suggested deliberate shortening of the word ‘rebellion’. Reble, who had already begun to rap by then, liked the idea of an artistic alter ego. Then there was the bit about not having her family find out that she was doing music. A stage name was to cover the tracks. Drawing inspiration from American heavyweights such as André 3000, The Notorious B.I.G. and Eminem, she debuted under the moniker ‘Daya’ in 2018, then reinvented herself as ‘Reble’ a year later.

Raised by a single mother, who was working to provide for her children and was also going through health issues of her own, Reble grew up in boarding schools in Guwahati and Shillong, places that informed her taste in music. “I grew up real quick being on my own,” she says. Her mother and elder siblings’ eclectic taste in rock music and hip-hop also allowed her to develop a keen ear. “Shillong is the capital of rock in India, so there was a lot of Scorpions and Guns n Roses one heard,” says Reble, who adds that the conflict in the North East was also an influence. “It would be wrong if I said that it was the most stable place. The conflict definitely does affect how I write,” she says.

While Reble’s mother liked her music, she wanted her to pursue a stable career. “Like a typical Indian parent, she felt there were too many risk factors with music and I needed a stable career,” says Reble, who moved to Bengaluru to pursue a career in civil engineering. “But I wasn’t forced into it. I love classical physics. I can still do mathematical equations,” she says. Moving to Bengaluru opened up different opportunities, the kind which were never available to her back home. She now had access: to better studios, sound systems and diverse gigs. One of her first songs was Bad, a seething look at her dysfunctional family, followed by Terror that explored identity. In 2022, she came out with her debut EP, Entropy (Homegrown Records).

She recently performed at the Northeast Festival in Delhi, which also had Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in attendance, who met her post the concert. “He is a cool person. I think he liked the music because when I was performing, he was vibing to the tunes,” says Reble, who was recently one of the prominent stars of the Dhurandhar music launch event that took place in Mumbai with actor Ranveer Singh gyrating to the songs.

While many critics and sections of the audience may see ideological layers into the world of Dhar’s Dhurandhar, Reble views her role strictly through the lens of an artist. “I think movies are just movies… I was happy to be in a room with such talented people,” says Reble. That said, she is also acutely aware of the limits on free speech, especially for artistes in today’s polarised world, because “people don’t view artistes as people”. “There is obviously a lack of empathy. There’s a big gap between people who view artistes as celebrities versus them speaking as a person. It really pisses people off. They are like, ‘how can she be offended? How can she be angry? That’s a big problem,’ says Reble, who dreams of singing at Coachella.

With a lot of work from the industry coming her way, Reble says she is being selective and continues to work on her non-film work. “I never made music because I wanted to be famous or make money out of it. I just like it,” she says. We are listening.