[tgs]

Tam Brahm Rap


Just who is Blaaze? Ask AR Rahman, Louis Banks and DJ Aqeel, says Lalitha Suhasini






OUTFITTED in a basketball tee and loose tracks, sporting a shaved head, the rapper look is in place; but there’s nothing gangsta about this musician as he cuddles his five-month-old daughter Mishti.

Twenty-nine-year-old Blaaze (pronounced blahsay), or R Gopalakrishna as the nameplate on the door reads, decided years ago: ‘‘Gangsta’s not in my roots. I am a Tamilian born in Chennai and I would sing about stuff that made a difference to my world.’’ So he’s written a piece on Gujarat riot victim Bilkis Yakub Rasool, and is writing an anthem on tuberculosis for the United Nations.
Blaaze has been AR Rahman’s favourite since 2001. They’ve worked together on 10 films including Saathiya, Yuva and Swades; two more projects, Kisna and Lord of The Rings, are in the offing.

This despite the fact that his first meeting with the legendary music director was completely fruitless. ‘‘I met him at 2 am in a studio next to Mumbai’s Siddhivinayak temple with a demo CD,’’ recalls Blaaze. ‘‘There was no hello, nothing. Rahman had one question: ‘Can you rap in Tamil?’’’ Blaaze, who was brought up in Zambia and did his O levels in the UK, couldn’t. Rahman promptly said goodbye but called up a year later to record a track called Dating for the Tamil blockbuster Boys. ‘‘He convinced me that if I could speak and understand Tamil then I could rap in it too,’’ says Blaaze, who has since rapped in English for DJ Aqeel’s remix of Kishoreda’s Keh Doon Tumhe, and has another number, Get The Look, in Aqeel’s next album.

So what else is spinning in Blaaze’s repertoire? You can expect a Beyonce-Sean Paulesque R&B track soon. At least that’s how the rapper with seven names—Lakshmi Narsimha Vijaya Rajagopala Sheshadri Rajesh Raman—describes his recent collaboration with Honk Kong-based singer Coco Lee.

It is very rare to find a rapper-lyricist combination like Blaaze
in India
AR Rahman
Blaaze penned his first piece as a 19-year-old, when he wrote a poem congratulating Zambia’s then-President Frederick Chiluba after the 1991 presidential elections. ‘‘We had the same president for 27 years, who was then replaced by Chiluba,’’ says Blaaze, who rapped the poem on air for ZNBC (Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation).

In 1996, Blaaze enrolled for an arts degree in cinema at Columbia University. “I went to the US thinking I’d never return, but it’s impossible to get into production if you’re not a US citizen who’s a member of the film union.’’ So he came to Mumbai and landed a job as an MTV producer, where, in two years, he fuelled shows like World Chart Express and Select.

After years of jamming with the likes of Sivamani and Louis Banks, Blaaze has now teamed up with musician Sagar Desai to form a group called Zambezi Funk. ‘‘Zambezi is where I’m from and funk is what Sagar brings to the music,’’ he says. Together they’ve composed the theme for Nickelodeon, MTV promos and worked on Sanjay Bhatia’s 99.9 FM.

Till date, Blaaze makes sure he sends a copy of all his works to ZNBC. ‘‘This is where I began.’’

**source http://www.indianexpress.com/archive...ntent_id=57998