CHENNAI: Jaffna-born rapper and musician Shan Vincent de Paul responded to the controversy surrounding lyricist and performer Arivu's exclusion from the Rolling Stone magazine cover on his Facebook page on Thursday.
In the statement he posted on his Facebook page, Shan Vincent de Paul chalked out different responses to address lyricist and rapper Arivu, and to express his opinion on the controversy and filmmaker Pa Ranjith's tweet.
For the uninitiated, Arivu performed and wrote the lyrics for 'Enjoy Enjaami', and composed the Tamil lyrics in 'Neeye Oli'. Both songs featured Shan Vincent de Paul as well.
This follows the controversy that was stirred when on August 22, Pa Ranjith took to Twitter to point out the exclusion of Arivu from the Rolling Stone cover that only featured Dhee and Shan Vincent de Paul, both of whom performed songs that were written by Arivu.
In the first section of his public statement, Paul said, addressing fellow rapper Arivu, "I will forever support you and stand behind your quest for representation, not just in this moment, but continuously. You are an inspiration to so many, and it shows." He acknowledged the importance of Arivu's contributions to the songs he writes and performs and insisted that he would "never attempt to discredit or take away from his hard work". He also mentioned that he looked forward to continuing this conversation with Arivu.
In his statement, Paul also lashed out against Pa Ranjith's tweet about Arivu's erasure from the Rolling Stone cover. "He irresponsibly fueled the fire of divide amongst Tamil artists," Paul said, adding that Ranjith left Paul's contributions in 'Neeye Oli' unacknowledged and credited Arivu for the lyrics. "...The choice to politicize this specific cover instead of calling for Arivu to have HIS OWN cover was inappropriate, and created a divide amongst us that did nothing more than scapegoat other under-represented and hard working artists," Paul mentioned.
'Neeye Oli', a song that Pa Ranjith featured in the soundtrack of his latest film "Sarpatta Parambarai", was co-written by Arivu and Shan Vincent de Paul, and performed by the latter, alongside Navz-47 and Santhosh Narayanan.
Shan Vincent de Paul also claimed that the Rolling Stone cover was not based on the songs written and performed by Arivu but was instead based on the debut albums that he and Dhee are releasing under the Maajja label. He went on to say, "When Arivu, Navz and all of the amazing other artists on Maajja prepare to release their albums I know that they will be phenomenal, and am sure Maajja and Rolling Stone India will promote them as well."