Rahul Khadtare first discovered hip-hop at age 13, when his friend found a phone lying around inside an auto rickshaw.   

“We just took the phone someone had left behind inside the auto rickshaw and kept it in our pockets,” recalls the Mumbai resident, who is now more popularly known as Kidshot. 

“After opening the phone, we found that it had about 60 to 70 songs from artists like Nas, 50 Cent, Lil Wayne…Initially, we couldn’t really understand what these rappers were saying and knew nothing about them. So, we went to the local cyber cafe, did a little research and printed out the lyrics.” 

Reading their lyrics closely, the friends realised that these rappers were talking about the same things that they were going through in the streets and slums of Powai. Taking inspiration from their lyrics, Kidshot decided to write and rap about what they were going through, but in a language more familiar to them — Hindi. 

By 14, he started to drop his own songs with help from his friends. Whatever the quality, the objective was to just put out music, he notes. Slowly but surely, he sharpened his skills. He would write every day and listen to entire discographies of artists like 2Pac and Notorious BIG.

“Many of the great American rappers grew up with nothing. These artists were always talking about the streets and housing projects they grew up in. They spoke of growing up with no money and trying to make it in one way or another. In the slum where I grew up, everything used to happen, like murders, and drug peddling…and people would engage in a variety of crimes just to make something out of nothing. I really related to that reality,” he recalls. 

He says that if you mention Powai, most people have the impression that it’s a wealthy area with locations like the opulent Hiranandani complex. “They don’t know that there are real slums here too. Whenever it rained, our home would get flooded.” 

Listening to these lyrics, Kidshot felt that the only difference between growing up on the mean streets of New York and Mumbai is the gun culture prevalent in the United States (US). 

“Here, there were more physical altercations, stabbings, etc. See, these rappers came from nothing and made it to the top. I wanted that too. I didn’t want to be trapped by my circumstances. I had to do something to make my way out of these streets and earn bread for my family. Even before hip-hop fell into my lap, I was hanging around with my friends doing ‘bad things’, but also thinking about how to make things happen for me.”

From the moment hip-hop entered his life at 14, Kidshot was determined to make it in music. Where he came from, there was no one to........

© The Better India