When MC Kode offers you the chance to tag along with him on one of his studio sessions, you say yes. Kode is a rapper who has played an integral role in shaping Delhi’s hip hop scene – both in terms of music as well as culture. I had met Kode in summer last year, and when I reached out to set up a meeting this February as part of my fieldwork, he invited me along for a studio session. We met at the Majlis Park metro station, one extreme of the Delhi Metro’s Pink Line, where we grabbed an auto and headed to his sound technician’s studio in Delhi 84. For many, the area is most known for being the site of the Netflix documentary, House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths. The documentary unravels the truths and theories surrounding the suicides of an eleven-member family from the area. For Kode, it’s where his sound technician, Logan, lives – someone who knows his sound and works with him to put out his music. “It's not the place that I’m here for, it’s the sound, it’s someone who knows my sound”. As we chat in the auto, I realise that it is necessary to frame Kode the hip hop artist as an urban researcher: uncovering the layers, and soundscapes of Delhi.
At Logan’s home studio –in between Kode’s takes and retakes, we paused to discuss musical influences and inspirations, music videos, and the mentorship role that Kode plays in supporting emerging artists within the DHH community. What is interesting about studio sessions is watching the artist take on multiple identities: writer, composer, rapper, interpreter … and seeing them reconcile those creatively. As Kode moves through his music, he pauses to explain what certain sections mean, the sounds he's trying to achieve, as well as the writing process.
When Kode finished his takes, we headed to the skate park at Deer Park for a Spit Dope cypher. We are joined by Satik, a young rapper mentored by Kode, who recently put out his first single: “Aalas”. We take a cab, and move through the more congested parts of the city, past large industrially designed bridges, and through one very long underpass. And as we reach we see a gathering of young people mostly-though-not-exclusively young men improvising beats, bars, and moves. And as the event starts to wind down, we depart and head to the adjacent Humayunpur, stopping by Laphing’s Corner for their delicious slightly too high-spice laphing, that we ate while walking through the community park. Before continuing our walk to and through Safdarjung, ending at the market, and making our way to our respective homes.
Image: Spit Dope cypher at skate park, Deer Park. 4th February, 2024.
Hip Hop Artist as Ethnographer
Within urban studies, there is a strand of literature that argues that hip hop can be thought of as a form of urban research (Beer, 2014; Jaffe, 2014). We can think of a hip hop artist as an urban ethnographer. Through their music, artists take us on an exploration through the places that define their lives. And hip hop has been a genre that focuses on cities and cityscapes. Jay-Z’s “The City Is Mine” (1997, Roc-a-Fella/Def Jam) appropriates the chorus from Glenn Frey’s 1985 hit “You Belong to the City” (MCA) to frame his descriptions of the urban lifestyles of hip-hop’s rich and famous. On “Welcome to the City” (1998, No Limit), Master P structures tales of social struggle, criminal behaviour, and underground economies around the chorus of Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” (1973, Tamla). Lauryn Hill’s “Every Ghetto, Every City” (1998, Ruff-house/Columbia) gives a nod to the rhythmic pulse of Stevie Wonder in his Innervisions (1973, Tamla) phase, offering a meditation on the urban terrains that inflected Hill’s identity in her formative teenage years. Her track is representative of how hip-hop’s expressive attention to urban detail highlights specific places – and the activities and cultural practices associated with them.
Image: The Book of HOV - an exhibition on Jay Z at the Brooklyn Public Library, featuring text from his book, “Jay-Z decoded”. 23 August, 2023.
DHH as Ethnography
There are artists in the Desi hip hop circuit, who through their music take us on journeys through India’s cities. In a conversation with Pranav Manie recently on whether Divine is overrated, he observed that, “Mumbai inspired Divine’s music, but now – Divine’s music inspires Mumbai”. Vasudev’s music, with short EPs named after different lines on the Delhi metro, takes its listeners on a journey through the complex jungle that is Delhi NCR. AB 17’s music is a much-needed critical commentary on the multiplicity of Delhi. Lines like “Dost mera snatcher uske hathon mei beedee, Raat bhar jaguu meri kaali hai ankhe, Dilli ko jaan meri baatain hai sach, Colony ke kachron se meethe tu bach, Lootenge tujhko tu bundo se upher'' hit particularly hard in a city that calls itself “world class” in an attempt to hide its inequalities. Lonekat’s recent album Sleeper Class is a train journey across layers of migration (This is purposefully vague but will be explored in a later post). But lyrics are only the beginning. And hip-hop is not exclusively about songs. As I walked with Kode through Delhi, I thought about the routes traced by our footsteps and what the maps drawn by following other artists, fans, and managers in their routines, commutes, and gigs would look like. I am also curious about how framing the DHH artist as ethnographer expands the conversation around public and private spaces in the city. From a home studio to the Deer Park skate park, I am curious about the significance of public and private spaces as they shape (and are shaped by) hip hop performance and audience.
References
Beer, D. (2014). Hip-Hop as Urban and Regional Research: Encountering an Insider’s Ethnography of City Life. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(2), 677–685. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2012.01151.x
Jaffe, R. (2014). Hip-hop and Urban Studies. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(2), 695–699. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12090
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