Nepalese hip-hop

Nepalese hip hop, or NEPHOP, is the Nepali form of hip hop introduced in Nepal by Girish Khatiwada (NepHop). Its elements include MCing, DJing, Breakdancing, and graffiti writing. Rap culture was introduced in Nepal through the electronic DJs mixing the classical Nepalese songs with the Western urban style. Later, it took the form of artists releasing songs with the commercial beats.

History

Popularity growth (early 2000s)

In the 90s, Girish-Pranil started the rap culture. In 2000 Rappaz Union (Sammy Samrat and Nirnaya Da' NSK) created the first Nepalese rap album in English. In 2002, GP (Girish Khatiwada and Pranil L Timalsena) released the album Back Again. The song "Ma Yesto Chhu Ma Usto Chhu" featuring DA69 was the first rap song to attract broad Nepalese audiences to rap music. Another song on the album is "Timi Jaha Pani Jaanchhau".

In 2003, Nurbu Sherpa released his debut album Nurbu Sherpa Representin' K.T.M.C. ("K.T.M.C." meaning Kathmandu Metropolitan City). This was the first Nepalese hip hop album recorded in the United States, for which he was nominated for the Best Music Video Award. In 2004, The Unity {Aidray and DA69(Sudin Pokhrel)} brought out their first album Girish & The Unity presents X with Girish Khatiwada (Gorkhali G.) It included "She's the Bomb", the music video for which became a major success in the local charts. Other songs on this album were "Malai Vote Deu", a satire to politics, "Da Drug Song", and "Anything" feat. Abhaya Subba and the Steam Injuns.

NEPHOP: Rise of the underground (2003 - 2008)

In 2003, underground rapper Aroz, based in New York City, spearheaded the first Nepalese underground hip hop movement through his now-defunct website nephop.com. The term "Nephop" was coined during the discussion by Aroz with his mutual friend producer DJ AJ from Canada. Aroz coined the term "NepRap" while Dj Aj suggested "Nephop". The movement soon gained worldwide popularity and "Nephop" accepted as a portmanteau of "Nepalese hip hop". The online portal gave a platform to showcase the talents for all the budding rappers spreaded all across the world among the Nepalese diaspora. The movement brought forth some of the best underground artists like Boka Mystiks (Canada), Original Sinz (Canada), Mc Yogi (U.K), Cyclops (Canada), KTM Souljah, Sinis, Dj Kartell (NYC), Dj Gorkhali (NYC) during its heyday.

In 2004, Aroz released his first underground single, "Chudaina", produced by DJ AJ on nephop.com. In 2005, Nepsydaz, a rap group, had commercial success with their version of the same song. Aroz gained massive notoriety for his next single "Katti Khep". WAVE magazine declared him "the most controversial" rapper to experiment with dirty rap, a paradigm shift from the traditional conservative cultural norms. This single had great success in the underground circuit because of its extremely explicit content. Aroz quickly capitalize on his success by releasing his next single "Killin' Terraces", which the New Urban Music Blog considered one of the best Nepalese political rap songs.

Aroz received some mainstream exposure after being featured on Nurbu Sherpa's single "Baby Gurl", from Nurbu's second album, Save Nepal. "Baby Gurl" was voted one of the top ten songs of 2008 in Nepal by Fursad.com. Nurbu also featured Aroz and other underground rappers in his next single, "When I'm Around", from his third album.

Anuraag Sharma, widely known as Mc Flo is a Nepalese rapper from Kathmandu, Nepal. He is widely considered as one of the promising musicians in Nepalese music industry. Starting 2009, he served as an underground rapper releasing 6 mix tapes with critical acclaim and huge underground success. He has released 6 mixtape under his belt : Discography - 1.A million dreams (2009) 2.You can't touch this (2010) 3.The black tape ( 2011) 4.Kunai din (2012) 5.Ugly Ep mixtop (2013) 6. Sab Bhanda Daami (2014) He has recently started his mainstream career and is scheduled to release his first mainstream music video "Aawaz"

Utsaha joshi aka Uniq poet aka U.n.i.Q is one of the budding talent in the underground nephop scene in Nepal.

See also

• Music of Nepal

Yama Buddha