The Raftaar Way: Rap Battle With Emiway Bantai & More

The rapper also speaks about Bollywood being not a platform but an industry.

Raftaar at the Redbull ‘off the roof’ concert.

(Photo courtesy: Facebook)

Dilin Nair, better known by his stage name ‘Raftaar’, was in Mumbai to perform at the Redbull Music event ‘Off The Roof.’ The Quint interacted with the singer of “Dhaakad” from Dangal.

Based out of Delhi, Raftaar has been extremely popular for promoting the hip-hop culture in India. This Kerala born rapper has made his way into the industry with his uber catchy Bollywood numbers. A promoter of independent artistry, he claims that he has not settled or compromised on his music. He recently sang for Nandita Das’s Manto, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as well. Mantoiyat had some hard-hitting lyrics where he talks about the state of the nation as well.

See Mantoiyat was a song which was censored for the radio but it played uncensored on YouTube, which has never happened in India before.

Raftaar

He is also clear about how Bollywood is all about business than an art platform.

Bollywood music industry is a business industry. Their aim is to invest money and take money out. It is not a platform. Bollywood is not a platform, it is an industry. Theatre is a platform.

If you are someone who is interested in the Hip-Hop scene, you cannot not ask Raftaar about Emiway Bantai and their exchange of “diss” tracks. Bilal Shaikh, famously known as Emiway Bantai, released a song called ‘Samajh Mein Aaya kya?’ where he displays his anger against Raftaar saying in an interview that Emiway is not earning enough money.

The video has crossed crossed 17 million views and to react to this track, Raftaar released ‘Sheikh Chilli’ replying to Emiway which has touched 20 million views.

A lot of people on the internet claimed that this is a scripted move by both the artists although they both have gone on live videos to clear that this rivalry is anything but scripted. They released a few more songs replying to each other which you can easily find on YouTube auto-play once you click on the first song,

Now, we don’t know if these diss songs are scripted or not, but what we know for sure is that this has raised awareness among the Indian rap community and promoted its culture of competing against each other by showcasing their talents which is what the whole hip-hop culture stands for.

Ranveer Singh, who will be starring in Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy, also released a video on his Instagram asking both of them to end the hostility and become brothers again.

Divine and Raftaar took the stage together at the Redbull Music event ‘Off the Roof’ in Mumbai on the 17th of November where they sang ‘Sheikh Chilli’ together.

YouTube has been silent for now but you never know who is about to drop what. We should end it at what Ranveer Singh has said ‘Tum Desh ke Panchi ho, Desh Premiyo’.