Wild animals of Uttarakhand don't want Honey Singh, do we?
In a world of deranged violence and all-round depravity, it is increasingly common to compare humans to animals. Anything base and rotten is immediately dubbed "animal-like" and the refrain: "Even animals are better than this!" is passed around to reinforce how us humans are inherently, in our very bones, better than the beasts.
Turns out we have been wrong all along. According to reports, farmers in Uttarakhand have been blasting Honey Singh's music from their farms and fields to keep wild animals at bay. And it's working. Bishan Jantwal, a farmer in Dhari village, told Times of India, that he has been playing Honey Singh's music to intimate the animals of human presence. Of course, the farmer may have chosen this particular music because he liked listening to it. But why not get a little ironical and suppose that the animals are discerning enough to keep away from a strain of music that humans lap up hungrily. Who, then, is more civilised: man or beast?
Tongue still in cheek, I can't help wondering if there are lessons for us here. Bollywood music, apart from the lustrous tunes of an AR Rehman, has been guilty of a number of sins for some time now. There is rampant lifting of tunes from other cultures, lifting that is so eclectic that it now relies on West Asia and Africa more than it does on the West. (Take a bow, Pritam, for introducing us, if inadvertently, to the smoke-fuelled melodies of a region that we hear about only in war reports.)
But stealing can still be redeemed if it produces something that satisfies the soul, as do songs such as "Ya Ali, Reham Ali" from Gangster or "Pehli Nazar" from Race. Honey Singh too has faced allegations of theft that have done the rounds of NRI music scenes, but that is certainly not his weakest link. It is the music itself, which purports to be rap without the egalitarian spirit of rap, that makes it difficult to place Honey Singh.
Rapping originated in South Africa in the early 20th century and, together with hip hop, unleashed a music form that was rooted in the black experience. Its jagged lyrics dressed in tubthumping beats captured something so essential about racism and slavery that it spoke to a generation. It entered the US in the 1920s through Mississippi, where it found both black and white adherents. From then to the rise of Eminem in the 2000s, rap became such an essential part of American music that a white man could rap without (largely) being accused of appropriating the black experience.
Step away from all this history though, and let's ask the fundamental question: What makes rap? Does what Honey Singh do rap? It sure sounds like rap, and yet it jars. Because music that does not question, that does not bring alive a rooted experience but uses rap's groove to further problematic social situations like women's objectification, is neither here nor there. It may make you slither to the dance floor but heaven forbid if it connects with you.
In a widely circulated video, Rene Verma, a history student at the St Stephen's College, rapped her problems with Honey Singh's music at a poetry slam.
Listen closely and hear the anger flow. Watch as she vents her rage. Now this is rap, this which occupies an agitational space between music and poetry, a space where the music becomes subservient to the sheer force of the lyrics. Rene's fury, mind, is directed not just at Honey Singh but at a worldview that silkily wraps its prejudices in a format that does not stop being deeply offensive even when it's highly popular.
What then do we do with Honey Singh? Ignore him as a product of our consumerist times where our most cherished cultural products can be mangled to generate pap that sells? Or look at him as a symptom of our broader culture, a culture which produces entertainment that is meant to lull rather than stimulate. In a recent interview, actor Anushka Sharma said it is a blessing being an actor in India, because the standards are so low that anyone with even a hint of talent becomes popular. Coming from her, the statement was doubly ironic because Sharma is decidedly not someone with little talent. But her larger point is well taken. Maybe we deserve the likes of Honey Singh guarding the pearly gates of our popular culture.
Who would have guessed that animals knew better?