Street Academics are a perfect example of how an independent musical culture evolves.
They were around, shaping and crafting the music, long before the recent explosion of hip-hop into the mainstream with Gully Boy.
“The idea of Street Academics was sown back in 1999 out of an interest in slam poetry and pause tapes (a technique of looping beats without expensive samplers). I’d cut and paste cassette tapes to create beats and try spoken words over it, but never knew it was hip-hop.
"I discovered the international scene only with the ease of access to the internet in the 2000s,” says Founder Rajeev M, better known as Rjv Ernesto or Pakarcha Vyadhi.
Since 2009, the project has assimilated artistes to become an independent, organised six-member crew additionally consisting of Dr Haris Saleem (Maapla), Amjad Nadeem (Azuran), Abhimanyu Raman (Earthgrime), Vivek Radhakrishnan (V3K) and Arjjun (Imbachi). We speak to Ernesto to trace their long journey to the debut full-length album named Loop and how they garnered a cult following among fans.
Recorded activity
Rjv had been fiddling with cassette deck for a while before hip-hop voices from across the country started being heard on the internet in the mid-2000s.
He reminiscences how websites like MySpace and Orkut helped create a network of rap music enthusiasts, including now-familiar names such as Brodha V and Hiphop Tamizha-fame artiste Adhithya Venkatapathy.
“We’d been rapping in English for a while when we were inspired by the Tamil delivery of Yogi B (from Malaysian group Poetic Ammo) to try something in Malayalam. At first, it felt like walking a thin line because we had to keep it from becoming too philosophical and sounding like a parody at the same time,” says the rapper, who also interestingly co-produced Gully Boy-fame Divine’s first Hindi-rap track, Yeh Mera Bombay.
Their attempts at creating a Malayali branch of desi hip -hop not only paved the way for younger artistes but also found resonance among the movie fraternity with writer/director Muhsin Parari (Sudani From Nigeria fame) charting out collaborations under the name Mappila Lahala.
Evolving sound
One could attribute the development of Street Academics’ alternative hip-hop sound to countless singles that got sucked into the musical underground; as blog posts and files circulated among listeners.
“We’re from an analogue generation and so our early works exhibit an old school flavour. Some-time around 2010-11, we wanted to work on our musicality. Ruthin Thej (Thaikkudam Bridge’s present keyboardist) brought in some R&B and soul music influences first and later we’ve soaked up a wide spectrum of sounds ranging from jazz and ambient to glitch and grime,” informs the 29-year-old.
Regional inflection
Since 2009, the project has assimilated artistes to become an independent, organised six-member crew additionally consisting of Dr Haris Saleem (Maapla), Amjad Nadeem (Azuran), Abhimanyu Raman (Earthgrime), Vivek Radhakrishnan (V3K) and Arjjun (Imbachi).
We speak to Rjv to trace their long journey to the debut full-length album named Loop and how they garnered a cult following among fans.