With 1.2 million views on YouTube in under two weeks, Kerala-born rapper Hanumankind's latest music video 'Big Dawgs' is the talk of the town with several international artists, online hip-hop blogs and enthusiasts of the genre hailing it as the 'Song of the Summer'. The nearly four-minute track – composed by Hanumankind and produced by Kalmi under Brown Crew Productions – is earning praise for its music as well as the intense video shot inside a well of death (a carnival sideshow in which motorcyclists or drivers of miniature automobiles travel along the vertical wall and perform stunts).
The track has caught the attention of the gatekeepers of hip-hop for all the right reasons. Online hip-hop blog pages like 'rap' (12.4 million followers) and 'Pigeons and Planes' (843K followers), and artists like DJ Akademiks (5.3 million followers) shared the track on Instagram, calling it among the best to come out of the genre in recent times.
However, a riptide of racist remarks has hit the track and the comments section has been flooded with an outpouring of slurs stereotyping Indians. Surprisingly, the majority of handles making fun belonged to individuals from the black community, who used the genre as a tool to fight racism and oppression in the past. While one user was shocked to learn that Indians speak any English at all, another said this track would be the artist's ticket out of his 'call-centre' job (another overdone Indian stereotype by Hollywood). Yet another handle remarked: “Jokes aside, he's making it out of the caste system with this one.”
Some of the vile remarks stemmed from users who appear to have grown up on a rich diet of Indian stereotypes propagated by Western pop culture for the longest time and a general disdain for 'non-American' artists who attempt hip-hop.
Here are some of the comments made by several users that are outright problematic:
“I can smell him through the video”
“He is Kamala's nephew”
“The music is just like their street food. It's a**”
“Dude made it outta the Kachori Soup”
“This is the final boss at the call centre”
“We got an Indian who speaks good English before GTA VI”
Several handles accused the rapper of stealing the flow used in the song from American rapper Project Pat's 'Knife Talk' in collaboration with 21 Savage and Drake. Giving their own racist spin to Project Pat's name, several users called Hanumankind 'Project Patel'. Though many users pointed out the fact that Hanumankind had paid homage to Project Pat in the lyrics, the accusations were flying left, right and centre for them to notice. One user said: “He LITERALLY mentions Project Pat in the song. Paying homage and stealing are 2 different things, a lot of y'all favourite rappers did the same thing". Project Pat himself shared the track on Instagram, but that did little to stop the claims of Hanumankind stealing the former's flow.
Though many handles called the racist comments out, it was unsettling to see the number of likes and agreements the ones made in poor taste received, which begs the question: “Is rap only for America?”
