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Divine and Naezy are the real life ‘Gully Boys’, whose life has inspired an upcoming Bollywood film led by Ranveer Singh, who turned to them to ace his rapper avatar. They hope the movie takes the voice of hip-hop across the country.
Rapper Divine, whose real name is Vivian Fernandes, began his career as an underground rapper in 2011. He has grown up rapping in the ‘chawls’ of Mumbai.
After years of struggle, he rose to fame with the song Mere Gully Mein with Naezy. He even made history as the first Indian rapper to rap freestyle in Hindi for a radio show. In fact, his song Jungli Sher became so viral on social media that people started calling him ‘sher’ of rappers.
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Divine’s single Farak in February 2017 too topped the Indipop charts on iTunes India. But it was lack of understanding of hip-hop music among Indians which made him stay away from the mainstream music industry.
“Hip-hop is the voice of the streets and Gully Boy will take it to every corner of the country. The movie will make people more open to the idea of hip-hop, and definitely make them more aware,” Divine told IANS.
He hopes “everyone sees it, loves it and looks at hip-hop in India with pride”.
Like Divine, Naezy, whose real name is Naved Sheikh, has kept hope alive.
“We have a limited audience (for hip-hop). I hope that through the film, our audience gets expanded and the whole of India gets to see the real hard work of the underground rappers.”
He believes Gully Boy will open “more doors” for Indian street rappers and will “bring a change” in the Indian music industry.
Naezy’s obsession with rap began when he was just 13.
He didn’t have advanced music instruments, but he shot a video Aafat on an iPad, and it went on to garner more than 470,000 views on YouTube, putting him in the spotlight. This feat got him noticed in India’s rap culture.