For Sri Lanka-born Canadian recording artist Shan Vincent De Paul, India's music holds a special place in his heart as he gave the audience goosebumps while performing a fusion of Carnatic beats played on the Mridangam and rap at the recently held Vh1 Supersonic in Pune.

Verus Ferreira met the rapper backstage to know more about his music and life.

So this was your first performance in the country, what do you feel about it?

It was my debut performance in India and I still feel the adrenaline in my blood. Fusing Carnatic music with western rap has been a great experience and the response from the audience was so good.

Your Mridangam Raps have shot you to global fame, especially in the South Asian community, can you comment on it?

Yeah, it really doing very well. My collaborator Yanchan (Yawn-sin) plays the mridangam — beats you would expect to hear in a sabha, alongside the konnakol. Except, the konnakol here is replaced by my rapping. So the songs dwell about brown rappers, Tamil culture, and the immigrant experience.

So talking about your last point, immigrants, you too are an immigrant, moving from Sri Lanka to Canada.

Yeah. ‘Made in Jaffna’ is the most autobiographical work I’ve done so far and this album is my third and the latest work I have done so far. It tells my story from Sri Lanka to Canada, on the war in Sri Lanka, my Catholic upbringing in Toronto and so on. I have touched upon these things in my previous work, but this is the first time I am finally telling my story and connecting with my Tamil and brown audience.

You sang a new song at the fest, Best Friend, is it directed to anyone?

Yes the new single, Best Friend, is an ode to AR Rahman’s iconic song, Mustafa Mustafa. The aim is to challenge society’s ideas of masculinity, especially in the South Asian community. It is an open love song celebrating friendship between males, that’s not really a common topic in the hip-hop space. We are still very primitive in our ways of thinking about masculinity as a culture. The way in which men behave, speak and treat others has a direct result on how we treat women and everyone else.

Going back a few years, can you tell us about your Tamil roots?

I have always blended Tamil roots with rap for I grew up listening to Tamil radio at home but my influences are from American rap. In the track Mrithangam Raps, a collaboration with producer Yanchan, I incorporates the traditional Carnatic instrument. Fusion has existed in various forms previously, but we have taken it to a place it hasn’t gone before. There hasn’t been English speaking raps with the mrithangam before. Ever. So it’s also the fusion of East-meets-West that people are intrigued about. Hopefully it will have people looking into a culture they weren’t too interested in before.

So you are making some sort of South Asian rap that you hope would gain popularity in India?

South Asian rap resonates with so many people because rap has always been tied to the underdog and anti-culture. It was inevitable that it would take off in India. I think people are getting tired of the same old Bollywood vibe. It’s also taking off globally because there are incredible South Asian rappers competing with the best of them right now.

Lastly, your hits like Die Iconic, Zen and Light are big here. Your plans in India?

I’ll be shooting a few videos and just exploring the scene in general while I’m here. I would love to connect with some local artistes during this time.

So who would you like to meet?

Raja Kumari, Divine and The F16s, they are my favourite Indian artistes at the moment.