KARACHI: Are you sure you want to go here? Do you know who used to live here? This was home to the biggest gangster who lived — Rehman Dakait. His family still runs this place, said the driver as we turned in Kalakot’s Afshani Gali.

We parked outside a modest house further into the street and were greeted by Asadullah aka Danger Baloch, a rapper who recently shot to fame when Patari, a local music streaming website, released a track featuring Danger and his troupe — the Lyari Underground. Their track, ‘The Players of Lyari’, is a Baloch rap about how people view those who are born and brought up in the ghetto called Lyari.

Once inside the house, Danger took us upstairs to where he hangs out with the boys, a big room with a mattress lined on one side, a laptop and some music equipment stashed on the other.

One by one the boys everyone has been fascinated with on television started walking in: there was Anxiously (Abdul Ahad), Slipknot Denna and DJ Khalifa (Abood Baloch).

Unlike his stage name, Abdul Ahad is a composed young man and the brains behind Lyari Underground or LUG as they call it.

“Once I started rapping and getting into the scene these guys joined in and we formed the group,” said the 26-year-old.

His introduction to the world of rap and hip-hop happened quite accidently when he was learning English at an institute and his teacher recommended that he should listen to some music as an added learning tool. This was back in 2008.

Inspired by Tupac

Since he preferred something with a fast pace and good beats, he said rap music appealed to him. “The first rap song I ever heard was Tupac Shakur’s ‘Hit ‘Em Up’. I liked his stuff so started listening to more and more and I was like this person is dead, he didn’t even live in Lyari. How is he rapping about this place? I just couldn’t believe it,” he said.

Afterwards, he added, he did some research and found out that the neighbourhood the deceased rapper and producer lived in — Harlem, New York City — was no better than Lyari.

“I was very inspired by him. He grew up in a tough neighbourhood and became one of the best rappers of the century. So it was with this idea I decided to rap,” he said.

“Initially, I didn’t have much equipment and whatever I did have I would record and make my friends listen to it,” he added, explaining that these friends weren’t people he met with physically, but virtually in chat rooms.

“Even though we all live in the same street we did not come out and share our music openly, we preferred to keep it online where we were free,” said the rapper.

Danger and Anxiously met through one of these chat rooms.

“I put a rap out and these boys approached me asking how I had done it and wanted to learn,” said Anxiously Ahad.

The rap, Ahad added, was in Balochi and when the boys expressed interest in learning how to rap, he asked them where they lived. When he found out they lived in the same street it would take seconds to realise who they were. “We also found out that we were far-off relatives.”

Soon the rap crew of Anxiously, Danger and his twin brother Abood aka DJ Khalifa, were joined by M4, Desert Eagle and Slipknot Denna.

“When we became a group of five we decided to give the crew a name like N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitudes), a famous rap crew from Compton which turned out greats like Dr Dre and Ice Cube. We had gained some confidence and had honed our talent so thought the time was right and we formed Lyari Underground,” said Ahad.

Danger, a soft-spoken 22-year-old, said that he was inspired by N.W.A. which started out in Compton, a city located on the south side of Los Angeles known for violence, gang warfare, drugs and drive-by shootings.

Keeping it real

“They gained a voice through rap and we wanted to do the same. Children and young people in this neighbourhood don’t have many role models to look up to. They think the gangsters are something cool and aspire to be like that. It should not be like that. There is a lot of talent and positivity in Lyari as well,” he said.

“It is important to highlight that,” he added.

Daniyal aka Slipknot Denna joined the crew after he found his childhood friend Asadullah’s rap online. “I had no idea it was him because they were underground in those days,” he added.

Explaining why they chose to remain underground during those days, Asadullah said that it was a matter of protecting your art. “If any of the political parties find out you’re a singer they force you to write and sing for them and we didn’t want that,” he said.

These days the boys are on cloud nine with the Patari song going viral all over the media and are hoping they can reach out to the local and international audience straight out of Lyari.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2017