Miscellaneous
Raging against the machine
The excellently stitched-together narrative and the video thus work together to light a fire under our behinds. And do something about changing our realityGaurav Pote
Manas Ghale is arguably one of the few Nepali rappers who has stayed true to his game. The validity of this statement, in my opinion, is showcased by his three-and-a-half-minute song, Ek Chin Socha, which came out last year. In contrast to present-day rap songs, its lyrics are infused with rap's hallmark socio-political consciousness, and the intriguing video with subtle visual artistry and symbolisms make this song socially relevant and worth putting on your playlist.
The hip hop phenomenon had its beginnings in Nepal in the mid '90s, but Nepali rap artists have been only been able to come up with only a handful of hallmark pieces since then. Before the genre could take root and fully evolve, the hip hop scene almost fizzled out completely. Today, many first—and second—generation Nepali rappers are in self-imposed unprofessed exiles. But not Ghale. Under the moniker, Loorey, he has never quite stopped producing music, in a career arc that goes all the way back to his time with the rap-trio Nepsydaz in the mid 2000s; and his recent solo studio album, Sukeko Jiuma Loorey ko Bal, can be regarded as something of a hip hop gem.
Ek Chin Socha, the third release of the album, which was preceded by Sanama and Yatri, is the standout track from the album—in terms of both performance and presentation. Sanama sounds desperate, and Yatri probably hews closer to mainstream tastes. But Ek Chin Socha, with its mature lyrical approach, is a conscious hip hop offering. The skilful layering of intense wordplay, in a tightly snug beat, about confronting political and social issues makes the song a visceral tour de force. And visually, the interplay of monochrome tones and the muted visual graphics lend the song a certain gravitas.
Although the use of black and white is not all that uncommon in Nepali music videos, it seems to serve the narrative aptly for the Ek Chin Socha video. It helps strip off the distracting colours of everyday life, leaving only the blacks, whites and the shades in between—this works to suck in the viewers and fixate them into the gritty world being spat out in the lyrics.
When the video starts, we see the rapper tied up in a chair inside a dark room littered with newspapers; the scene is lit by a single overhead lamp in the background, and the rapper calls all of “his people” to wake up.
What follows next is a four-line chorus repeated twice, which gets the verse going: “Ek chin socha hera, ke bhairahecha yaha, Itihaas jalinayayuga bandai chha yaha,” he asks his audience and then punctuates the opening with ominous lines: “Kalam haina hatiyaar ko khel chaldaichha yaha, Yasari nai mero Nepal bandai cha yaha.” These lines separate the two 16-line verses, both of which begin by breathing fire against political anarchy and end with a call for social reforms and collectiveness.
Then the narrative gets subversive, with lines like "Chaldai cha rastra chhimeki sanga bhikh maagimaagi, Chahiyo uucha bichardhari, tuchha bhrasthachari haina" and "Now take a look at what's around you, ghus khanay mukh haru, Sabha saad ka padh paye kayi nalayak pramukh haru". It's all about raging against the machine. But raging because he has hope that things can and should be better: "Tara hinsha murkhata ho tyokura ma bujdachu, Tesaile pariwartan lyaune tyo krantilai kurdaichu. "Ghale is appealing to that wellspring from which all good hip hop is drawn: moral conscience. And then he appeals to the latent good that he presupposes is in all of us: "Hamlai futna haina, jutna cha jhuk na haina uthnacha, Darr dekhi lukna haina shirr uthai joodhna cha," in effect turning the tables on us Nepalis who are either indifferent to the pressing political and bureaucratic issues or incapable of taking any action against the status quo. Instead of the usual self-indulgence, that bad rap can be seen by some to typify, Ghale is mouthing the everyman's concerns.
But that's only half the artistic appeal of this production piece: the visual presentation too is thoughtfully rendered, with subtle symbols that embody the ethos of the social collective that Ghale wants to speak of. From the starting frames of the song, the rapper keeps stumbling into pitch-black eyed pedestrians, students and street vendors on his path, as his darker side pursues him; by the end of the song, the dark side kidnaps him and possesses him. The graphical manipulation of the eyes—turning them pitch black—is an obvious sign of being possessed. The colour black, associated as it usually is with bad and evil, despair and sorrow, at first glance it might come off as merely representative of the ghostly or the paranormal; but the dualism of black is that it equally pertains to strength and resilience, rebellion and uprising, and in this video, the latter meanings have been implied. Even the seemingly evil twin of the rapper seems to be his latent subconscious—harboured by many of us—that refuses to remain quiet amidst the chaos foisted on us by our leaders. By the end of the song, the political animal that is the subconscious takes over his conscious mind.
Rap and hip hop culture ultimately owe their beginnings to the unfortunate circumstance that the impoverished and discriminated-against mass have to wallow in; and this song is able to draw from a similar source, process the rage, egg us on to push for change. The excellently stitched-together narrative and the video thus work together to light a fire under our behinds. And do something about changing our reality.