Plenty of stories weren’t getting out there. That’s when two 25-year-olds from Jaipur decided to rap about it and Rajasthan-based rap duo Motorcycle Shayaries was born. Ritansh Pandey, the rapper, along with Siddharth Rathore, the sound engineer, have been creating a lot of buzz since their satirical video Holi Hai (which deals with rape and sex education) hit the airwaves. “Motorcycle Shayaries represent revolution and rebellion. There’s also this aspiration to travel and the need to spread awareness through music,” says Pandey. “Rap is an effective medium to air one’s frustration,” he adds with a laugh.
When asked why they rap in Hindi and not in English, he says, “We believe that rap is a strong medium of poetry. And everyone loves listening to poems (shayaries). We want to reach out to people ranging from the ‘chawl wala’ to the well educated.” They wish to experiment and stay limitless. They even plan on introducing a new genre called rap roll that is a combination of both rap and rock. “He (Siddharth) has a rock background while I rap. This is how we came up with the concept of rap roll,” says Ritansh, an avid Javed Akhtar fan.
Inspired by many ‘shayars’ like Gulzar, Pearl Jam and KISS the duo aspire to write original, meaningful songs that do not objectify women or talk about drugs and alcoholism. “We believe that we Indians are very tolerant. We need that little nudge to change things,” they explain. When asked how their parents reacted to the song Holi Hai, they replied, saying “They started sharing our video and spreading the word among friends and family,” adds Ritansh.
Surprisingly, they didn’t attract any controversy. “We did write a controversial song, but we did not call out names. So, technically we can’t be cornered. When people come up to us and ask why we wrote about everything negative, we ask them instead if what we’d written was false. They then walk away without another word,” says Ritansh. But it wasn’t a simple process, “It is difficult to write such songs because now we don’t feel like we have the liberty to speak our minds.” Their next single Bachpan vs Internet is aimed at bringing nostalgia to people who grew up in the 90s while the rest contrasts it with today’s tech driven world. Their desire is to play live throughout India and to be able to take their songs overseas.
Jack of all trades
The Che Guevara-inspired band expresses that they do not want to be restricted to one genre
Room for everyone
They believe that rap is a medium of to reach out to everyone from ‘chawl wala’ to the well educated folks
About the boys
The young rapper studied social work and spun that knowledge around his shayaries while Siddharth is a certified guitarist who is also a sound engineer. He makes use of that while giving life to the music for the band
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