The Next Big Indian Rappers You Should Know
Hanumankind’s rise has put the spotlight on the thriving Indian rap underground. We take a closer look at the up-and-coming hip-hop talent you need to watch out for
It was the summer of 2024 when Indian hip-hop finally went global. Helped by a riotous, death-defying music video, rapper Hanumankind and producer Kalmi’s Big Dawgs became an almost instant viral hit when it dropped last July. It took over TikTok and Instagram, earned shoutouts from some of the biggest hip-hop influencers from across the world, and hit No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 5 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.
The success of Big Dawgs earned the Malappuram-based rapper, whose real name is Sooraj Cherukat, a record deal with Capitol Records. More importantly, it has brought global attention to the thriving Indian rap underground, with its vast diversity of talent and styles.
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Could the next Big Bunny—a global superstar who doesn’t sing or rap in English— come from India? Which Indian rapper is most likely to follow in Hanumankind’s footsteps? Well, we don’t have a crystal ball, but we do know enough to put together this list of six rappers from the Indian underground scene that you absolutely must check out. There’s a good chance that in a few years, you might see one—or more—of them repping Indian rap on the global stage.
Dhanji
The Ahmedabad rapper likes to call himself “Jay-Z from Gujarat”, but his eclectic taste in music production, punk iconoclasm and lean-laced flow is more readily reminiscent of eccentric rap genius Lil Wayne. The prolific Dhanji, born Jayraj Ganatra, honed his craft with a run of seven genre-bending mixtapes before announcing himself to the world with his 2023 debut album Ruab. Blending highbrow philosophy with gleefully juvenile humour, Ruab draws from 1970s funk, Motown, blaxploitation soundtracks and Bollywood, to create a cinematic portrayal of—as he puts it in the liner notes—the “Herculean struggle to create art” under capitalism.
Last summer, he followed that up with Amdavad Rap Life: 2 Heavy On ’Em, Vol 2, a darker, grimier record that filters contemporary trap through his absurd, subversive lens. Within a few short years, the 26-year-old rapper has established himself as one of Indian rap’s most exciting young auteurs.
Kinari
A minute or so into Kattar Kinnar, the 2024 debut album by New Delhi rapper Kinari, you can already that she has the juice. The record starts with a sensuous purr that sets the mood, as the rapper’s husky, faux-whispered rhymes flow languidly over beats that sample everything, from North Indian mujra and North Chennai gaana to disco, ballroom dance, riot grrrl punk and grimy dub.
In Kattar Kinnar and follow-up EP Pinjre Ke Geet, Kinari’s lyrics document the complexities of life as a transwoman in the Indian capital, with all its joys and struggles. Radical critiques of Indian heteronormativity sit alongside scathingly witty snark and exuberant, unrestrained sexuality, as Kinari struts and vogues over the music with all the swagger of a desi Lady Gaga.
Pasha Bhai
The first time I heard Pasha Bhai’s gritty debut album Bangalore Ka Potta, it gave me the same thrill of frisson as Naezy’s Aafat. Rapping in street-Dakhni—a dialect of Urdu spoken in the Deccan region—the rapper from Bengaluru’s Neelasandra had the same sense of authenticity and rawness that made Naezy such a fan favourite.
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There’s Bangalore Ki Daastan, an oral history of the Bengaluru street seen through the eyes of a young Muslim boy, struggling with both communalisation and the parochialism of some of the elders in his own community. There’s Tumare Bawa, which captures the perennial sense of conflict between India’s underprivileged ‘others’ and police brutality.
Adikass is a character portrait of youthful nihilism that contains nods to the tragic story of Mohammed Mukkaram Pasha, a young college student, on a joyride, who was shot by the military when he accidentally entered a restricted area while trying to escape the police.
There’s no sanitised romanticism of poverty and oppression in Pasha’s music, nor are there odes to some mythical resilience. It’s proper, unfiltered old-school hip-hop—a no-punches-pulled chronicle of the brutality and violence that lurks under the facade of ‘civilised’ democracy.
Reble
All of 20 years old, Reble—aka Daiaphi Lamare— has already earned a reputation as one of Indian rap’s most exciting young talents. The Meghalaya rapper’s spiky, sharp-edged flow will draw natural comparisons to Eminem, but there’s plenty that sets her apart, particularly the honey-smooth R&B hooks on songs like Muse and Time Is Money. Rapping in English, Reble combines an acknowledgement and deep love for her North-eastern tribal roots with the more universal concerns of being a woman in a male-dominated world—both in and out of hip-hop.
“I’ll take on the roles of my forefathers’ mission,” she raps over Tre Ess’s sparse, drum-and-synth production on Terror, a track that alternates between verses in English, Khasi and Jaintia. On the pensive, propulsive Bond Fission, she confidently asserts that she’s “a dark horse/ magnificent art source.” If her singles are any indication, it’s hard to argue otherwise.
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Chaar Diwaari
When it comes to experimental takes onIndian hip-hop, nobody does it quite like Chaar Diwaari (aka Garv Taneja). The New Delhi rapper-singer, who is also a producer and visual artist, has put out a series of envelope-pushing singles over the past couple of years, combining a deep love for old Hindi film and pop music with forays into horror-core noise-rap (Barood), industrial metal (Aankh Band ft. MC Kode) and avant pop (Thehra). His surrealistic vision also applies to his immersive, cinematic music videos, products of a fevered imagination that’s a bastard child of Guru Dutt, Richard Linklater and David Lynch (there’s a reason Rolling Stone called him “your favourite worst nightmare”).
Despite these avant-garde tendencies, he’s received co-signs from the likes of Yo Yo Honey Singh and Lifafa. Pretty soon he’s going to be your girlfriend’s favourite “arty” rapper.
ThirumaLi
One of the early pioneers of rap in Kerala, ThirumaLi—aka Vishnu MS—has been making music since 2013, though his breakout moment came with 2018’s Malayali Da, an R&B-infused cut about “the state of being Malayali.” The Kottayam rapper blends incisive socio-political commentary with tongue twisting wordplay, with songs about everything, from greed and poverty to his own life trajectory.
ThirumaLi started out rapping in English, but switched to his native Malayalam before long, soon cutting through the noise with scathing social and political commentary and an authentic voice. His music is characterised by colloquial lyrics and delivery, aligning with the “raw” nature of rap that drew him to the genre in the first place.
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He’s already broken into the Kerala mainstream, appearing on the soundtracks of films such as Dulquer Salmaan-starrer Varane Avashyamund (2020). Last summer’s Thericho, an aggressive EDM-leaning banger with a Fight Club-adjacent music video, thrums with menace and barely restrained violence, a war-cry that’s easy to interpret even if you can’t speak a word of Malayalam. Having recently signed onto Mass Appeal India, ThirumaLi is now ready to take his distinctive style of Malayalam rap to the rest of the world. On tracks like Avastha, he calls out overconsumption and moral policing, while Sambar, by likening his flow to sambar—the South Indian dish that’s deceptively simple, but still packs a punch—he cheekily warns people not to underestimate him.