Getting to Know the Real ‘Gully Boy’, Naezy the Baa

Zoya Akhtar’s ‘Gully Boy’ is inspired by the life of this rapper.

Naezy in his first video interview.

(Photo: The Quint)

Born in the slums of Kurla and brought up in a very orthodox Muslim family, Naved Shaikh is now the role model for all the gully rappers in India.

Having had a really troubled childhood, Naezy has been through a lot to reach this stage, from having gang fights, hustling for money and much more. Naezy also talks about going to jail in those days.

Things had gone out of hand and Naved’s parents were also worried for him and to get him to the right track, the family had shifted to another house in Kurla itself. Not just his parents but Naezy himself realised that he needs to get his life back together. During all this, he was always interested in rapping and he would follow western rap and one thing led to another and Naved became Naezy which means Naved+Crazy=Naezy.

He released his first song ‘Aafat’ on YouTube which was shot and edited on his i-Pad and that was when he was noticed for the first time.

My first track ‘Aafat’, which I shot on and released through an iPad. Did not know it would reach the amount of people that it did. Of all those people, one of them was Zoya ma’am, she was editing ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’ at the time, and someone showed the video to her. She found it very interesting, the concept of coming from the ‘gully’ and having such a fast flow to their rap and how they represented real hip hop, she really liked and found the concept very interesting and she started looking for us. We had a common friend, his name is Ankur Tewari. Through him she learnt more about my story and possibly at that time she thought that a movie should be made based on this.

Naved Shaikh aka Naezy

The people who have been following the gully scene also know that Naezy was nowhere to be seen for almost a year and his return was celebrated all over social media. His return was also special because no one really knew where he was for almost a year.

I was figuring myself out. I went on a self discovery mode. I wanted to take some time off. There was a lot of stress and a lot of things happening in my area. I did a lot of work as well. I went overseas.

Naezy when asked about where he was for a year

Gully boy releases on 14 February and let’s make it clear once again, it is not a biopic! The movie is inspired by the life of Naezy and Divine.

Camera: Sanjoy Deb
Assistant Camera: Gautam Sharma
Producer: Vishnu Venugopalan
Reporter: Bilal Jaleel