It was a large crowd waiting to enter the venue for the Spotify RAP 91 event on Sunday 11^th December 2022 at the Jio World Center in Bandra East Mumbai.

The crowd was uncontrollable as the fans rushed towards the entrance to get to the top spot near the stage to witness artists performing live rap music.

We often say that rap is easy. It feels like you are just telling a story out aloud, but the hard work that these artists put in to come to the level of international rap artists is something you can only see at festivals such as Spotify RAP 91. Rapping needs a lot of energy and consistency with a lot of breath control while you are performing. And believe me, the artists that performed that night were masters in the craft.

When your favorite artist step on floor, you just know every word of the song, and the same thing happened at Spotify RAP 91. The crowd was divided with different followers of different artists and troops were waiting for their artist to come, but also at the same time the audience, many of them fans of the artists sung from top of their lungs to cheer the artist performing live.

You never get to see such a kind of connection of fans with artists, rap scene in India is on another level because of the rawness and the originality of the content it presents, people just connect their life experience with the song, so it just feels like the song is about us.

The artists who performed were King, Raja Kumari, Emiway Bantai and many others. Talking about a few of them, KING was the most awaited, the way he performed with the same energy throughout the entire set. The constant connection with the fans while bobbing on beats of the music with his silky pink printed Versace shirt fans got crazy as he performed. One of them brought his photo framed at the concert showing KING his own face and KING is performing watching his own face.

Whereas Raja Kumari as her name itself says, is the queen and was here to blow your mind away with her grand opening of her sitting on this huge white chair as if she was sitting on the throne of her kingdom. It was a grand opening with two backup break dancers wearing this Kathakali face masks. They were cheering the crowd up with their choreographed dance routine on her song lyrics. She was using a mic stand which was wrapped in a garland of marigold flowers so ethnic and Indian styled presence on stage.

Emiway on the other hand was the show banger. His entry was energetic with his unique hairstyle and the heavy jacket which he was wearing only in one hand and the other was just dropped off his shoulder that lasted till the end. It was like fans were singing the whole song back to him with double the energy of his. Fans were seen singing their hearts out to him. At some movements it felt a bit terrifying if you are an outsider or new to the scene, with all that heated up energy and artists throwing water on their fans and all, but that’s the way it is.

That’s the originality and the wave you feel coming from these performers which I call "Rapsters" as in rock stars for rock and pop stars for pop this hip hop rappers are "Rapsters" for me...

We know that the word “song” is a piece of music with words that you sing, then why people are so judgmental when it comes to rap music. There are aspects like using curse words and all to it, but that’s the heart of it. If we see it from the top, the 'POP' is "Hip Hop" in India, this is the most popular genre in this country, simply because of the hard truth of it and the way it’s been projected.

India has got a clear future of rap and hip pop music and this moment might be the best era of rapping, same as the 90s in western countries so you can say 90’s are back in India considering the western music graph.

Spotify RAP 91 gave justice to the whole hip hop community, by introducing a hip hop dance corner at the venue where dancers could take turns dancing during the breaks of the show which was shown live on the stages wings LED.

Special artists who visited to the events were Salim Merchant, KSHMR, Tesher, Munawar Faruqui and many others.

By Kiran Holkar

The writer was at the event on the invitation of Spotify