Rapper Deepa Unnikrishnan, popularly known as Dee MC, who has been known for her rebellious music, gets candid with The Pioneer, taking us through her journey, her music, and more.
Tejal Sinha
Smashing patriarchy with her powerful lyrics, unique style, and impactful performances has been one of the much-celebrated rappers, Deepa Unnikrishnan, aka Dee MC.
Now, looking back at her journey, it has been over 12 years since she first started rapping. It has been a gradual growth!
“Until 2016, it was pretty much underground music, and in 2017, I started doing it full-time,” recalls the Shuru Karein Kya singer. For her, getting recognised internationally, along with all the accolades that she’s been able to achieve in her own country, has been equally important. So, “I completely regard myself as an international artist and not just an Indian hip-hop artist. All the music that I make is very much influenced by a culture that is not ours. Likewise, when I try to reach out to the audience, I look at my audience as a global audience. So, for me, it has been a great journey so far, and I always believe in saying this one thing: There is no better time to be a hip-hop artist in India than now.”
As you evolve, you grow. Every year, you have a certain mental state. So, for the Tu Hi Manzil Meri singer, this year the motto that she’s going with is to have faith over fear. “In anything that I do, I need to have faith because the world already has so much fear going on that if I can stand tall in my authenticity and inspire other people in that process, then there is nothing better than that for me.”
Recently, celebrating the spirit of ‘Living it Large’, Seagram’s Royal Stag presented the second edition of Royal Stag BoomBox, a one-of-a-kind musical festival where the best-loved melodies of Bollywood met the pulsating beats of hip-hop. The musical experience held its third on-ground experience of the year. Calling the experience a unique opportunity, she says, “It’s an amalgamation of two really strong music genres. One is Bollywood, which is very melody-based, and one is hip-hop, which comes with rap, rhythm, and poetry. Rap is also a genre that fits perfectly into any other genre. So, it’s a perfect opportunity and platform for artists like me to showcase our skills, collaborate with artists who come from a totally different soundscape, and create songs that are really original and unique.”
An interesting experience that she’s had this time: Saurabh Abhyankar, aka 100RBH, performing with her squad boss. while he began with the opening set, and after that, Dee MC had a one-hour set along with dancers, which was full of ragers as well as calmers. She kind of ends her set always with a softer side of her, like you could say that the first half of her set will be quite hard and the second half will be quite soft!
“I think all of us got inspired by hip-hop because it was nothing short of a revolution back there in the West,” shares Khoyi Si singer, on rapping as a medium to share a social message. “Ideally, it was mainly supposed to be about giving messages, but that doesn’t necessarily always have to be a serious message. Even if I’m writing a fun song, a social message just comes into it because it’s just in my nature too. Right now, my music has taken a turn towards talking about mental health, talking about self-acceptance, and tolerance for people who may differ from you.”
The hustle for one to create a remark, especially in a male-dominated industry, is not as cakewalk as it may seem to be. So was it for the Vadhaiyaan singer too? For example, it was very difficult to make people see the vision that she was seeing. For the longest time, it would have felt like we were all in a trance following something in which we believed that Apna Time Aayega. But other people took a long time to kind of, you know, catch up with the flow. But other people took a long time to kind of, you know, catch up with the flow. “Trying to make other people understand, especially family, trying to make them understand why this is important for me, why I need to follow this. It was also about being patient, to let other people catch up to us. So, we always knew; we always saw a vision before anyone else, and have an undying faith in the face of people questioning us continuously. But what at the end really mattered was—is this gonna last?” However, the biggest challenge for her, especially being a woman in a country where it has only been 77 years since we got independence, has been that since about the 90s, women have started really participating in the workforce. It was very difficult to even get permission to go out and perform because everything happens at night, and no one in her family has anything to do with the entertainment industry. “It was even more difficult for me to level with them, because for them, they want me to be safe, and for them, the entertainment industry comes with its own set of problems,” says the rebellious star, adding, “In hip-hop, it is almost frowned upon if you don’t write your own lyrics. There is a term called ghostwriting, in which artists have other people write for them. Writing my own lyrics was the only option, and that is literally the way to be totally authentic to yourself. In hip-hop, there is one line that is always said: ‘Keep it real’. So keeping it real for me is about writing my own story and also stories of the lives of the people around me.”
Poetry was something that was in her even when she was in school. She’s been dancing since she was five years old because, being trained in Bharatanatyam, the rhythm was also in her. Rhythm and poetry together, she says, are rap!
“I think I was born to do that,” says the Jumla singer on women’s empowerment. “I think it is my life’s biggest purpose to put all the weight and power that I possibly can into balancing out whatever imbalances exist in this patriarchal society. Earlier, I used to be a bit more aggressive about it, but now I think I have calmed down in life. After that, the social message is still the same; the place that I’m coming from is still the same, but the way of saying it has probably become a little more empathetic.”
Smashing patriarchy with her powerful lyrics, unique style, and impactful performances has been one of the much-celebrated rappers, Deepa Unnikrishnan, aka Dee MC.
Now, looking back at her journey, it has been over 12 years since she first started rapping. It has been a gradual growth!
“Until 2016, it was pretty much underground music, and in 2017, I started doing it full-time,” recalls the Shuru Karein Kya singer. For her, getting recognised internationally, along with all the accolades that she’s been able to achieve in her own country, has been equally important. So, “I completely regard myself as an international artist and not just an Indian hip-hop artist. All the music that I make is very much influenced by a culture that is not ours. Likewise, when I try to reach out to the audience, I look at my audience as a global audience. So, for me, it has been a great journey so far, and I always believe in saying this one thing: There is no better time to be a hip-hop artist in India than now.”
As you evolve, you grow. Every year, you have a certain mental state. So, for the Tu Hi Manzil Meri singer, this year the motto that she’s going with is to have faith over fear. “In anything that I do, I need to have faith because the world already has so much fear going on that if I can stand tall in my authenticity and inspire other people in that process, then there is nothing better than that for me.”
Recently, celebrating the spirit of ‘Living it Large’, Seagram’s Royal Stag presented the second edition of Royal Stag BoomBox, a one-of-a-kind musical festival where the best-loved melodies of Bollywood met the pulsating beats of hip-hop. The musical experience held its third on-ground experience of the year. Calling the experience a unique opportunity, she says, “It’s an amalgamation of two really strong music genres. One is Bollywood, which is very melody-based, and one is hip-hop, which comes with rap, rhythm, and poetry. Rap is also a genre that fits perfectly into any other genre. So, it’s a perfect opportunity and platform for artists like me to showcase our skills, collaborate with artists who come from a totally different soundscape, and create songs that are really original and unique.”
An interesting experience that she’s had this time: Saurabh Abhyankar, aka 100RBH, performing with her squad boss. while he began with the opening set, and after that, Dee MC had a one-hour set along with dancers, which was full of ragers as well as calmers. She kind of ends her set always with a softer side of her, like you could say that the first half of her set will be quite hard and the second half will be quite soft!
“I think all of us got inspired by hip-hop because it was nothing short of a revolution back there in the West,” shares Khoyi Si singer, on rapping as a medium to share a social message. “Ideally, it was mainly supposed to be about giving messages, but that doesn’t necessarily always have to be a serious message. Even if I’m writing a fun song, a social message just comes into it because it’s just in my nature too. Right now, my music has taken a turn towards talking about mental health, talking about self-acceptance, and tolerance for people who may differ from you.”
The hustle for one to create a remark, especially in a male-dominated industry, is not as cakewalk as it may seem to be. So was it for the Vadhaiyaan singer too? For example, it was very difficult to make people see the vision that she was seeing. For the longest time, it would have felt like we were all in a trance following something in which we believed that Apna Time Aayega. But other people took a long time to kind of, you know, catch up with the flow. But other people took a long time to kind of, you know, catch up with the flow. “Trying to make other people understand, especially family, trying to make them understand why this is important for me, why I need to follow this. It was also about being patient, to let other people catch up to us. So, we always knew; we always saw a vision before anyone else, and have an undying faith in the face of people questioning us continuously. But what at the end really mattered was—is this gonna last?” However, the biggest challenge for her, especially being a woman in a country where it has only been 77 years since we got independence, has been that since about the 90s, women have started really participating in the workforce. It was very difficult to even get permission to go out and perform because everything happens at night, and no one in her family has anything to do with the entertainment industry. “It was even more difficult for me to level with them, because for them, they want me to be safe, and for them, the entertainment industry comes with its own set of problems,” says the rebellious star, adding, “In hip-hop, it is almost frowned upon if you don’t write your own lyrics. There is a term called ghostwriting, in which artists have other people write for them. Writing my own lyrics was the only option, and that is literally the way to be totally authentic to yourself. In hip-hop, there is one line that is always said: ‘Keep it real’. So keeping it real for me is about writing my own story and also stories of the lives of the people around me.”
Poetry was something that was in her even when she was in school. She’s been dancing since she was five years old because, being trained in Bharatanatyam, the rhythm was also in her. Rhythm and poetry together, she says, are rap!
“I think I was born to do that,” says the Jumla singer on women’s empowerment. “I think it is my life’s biggest purpose to put all the weight and power that I possibly can into balancing out whatever imbalances exist in this patriarchal society. Earlier, I used to be a bit more aggressive about it, but now I think I have calmed down in life. After that, the social message is still the same; the place that I’m coming from is still the same, but the way of saying it has probably become a little more empathetic.”
