I first heard about Hanumankind in Ashwath Kok’s review of Aashiq Abu’s Malayalam film Rifle Club. I have written about how Aashiq Abu foregrounds the collective protagonist in this film, which is also Hanumankind’s debut as an actor. Then I saw Hanumankind on an Apple Music podcast and I realized that he is not just another wannabe rapper from Kerala, but a highly regarded musician in the world, who can easily switch between Texas accent English and Malappuram accent Malayalam.
The way fellow rappers are reacting to every detail in every line of Hanumankind’s writing and rendition makes me think if he is equally a poet, as much as a musician. The wordplay, internal rhymes, a range of imagery in every line and multiple allusions to a single word, is reminiscent of poetry and high culture, literature.
In fact, there have been literary theorists and cultural critics who have argued that rap music is poetry.
- Adam Bradley’s Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop
- Tricia Rose’s Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America
But, the poetry in rap is so culture-specific, with slang, puns, intonations and improvisation, that cultural outsiders will hardly get it, although the syntax is crystal clear. In that sense, it needs interpretations, so much like in poetry classes.