HYDERABAD : Seventeen-year-old Keydan Sharma (Aditya) has become a social media sensation overnight after his free verse video titled Nai Sunte Bolre Tum has gone viral. The punchy track has been widely circulated on WhatsApp and the people love it. The song has got over four million views so far.
It took a breakup, followed by gruelling days of heartache, for Keydan to discover the rapper in him.
“I decided that I had to find and love myself than get involved with someone else.” He then started jotting random words in 2018 and began composing and producing his writings the year after. “I have produced a dozen rap songs, but the audience was always small. Like all my previous songs, I thought not many would listen to Nai Sunte,”says Keydan, who was cheated upon. His response to hurt or anger is pretty simple — either sarcasm or art, he says.
Nai Sunte is his first commercial track and he was not too happy with the way it panned out. “In fact, I was angry with it because I was doing it for money. But thanks to my anger, the track turned out to be ridiculously entertaining and people love it,” he says. Although he is from Rajasthan, his heart belongs in Hyderabad. “The city encapsulates everything just like any other city but yet it is different. There’s a tinge of Hyderabad in everything,” he says.
For the freshman student at St Joseph’s Degree College, King Koti, rap was initially very personal to him. He never used to share his compositions with people. “This went on for the first six months. I have always felt a connection with rap, Hyderabad, its people, the culture and the beauty. I cannot separate my feelings from my music; it is as though the city and my life are helping me narrate my story. I feel like I am a translator and not an artiste. I can only translate my feelings, their connection with the surroundings and time,”he says.
In his school days, Keydan was passionate about hip-hop dance and continues to love the art form. On a lighter note, the teenager says the tracks he composed before Nai Sunte were much better. “Par phir bhi logan nai sunte (yet people won’t listen),” he says.
— Mayank Tiwari mayank.tiwari@newindianexpress.com @out_in_doubt