Art and music is equal to political power: Pa Ranjith

— Purnima.Sah@timesgroup.com

Dressed in identical grey suits, walked in 19 band members of ‘The Casteless Collective’ during their first performance, in the city recently. With thousands gathering to see their performance, the band members were taken aback having received such a warm welcome. The highlight were the lyrics that condemned honour killings in the name of caste pride, quota, discrimination, and manual scavenging. And these videos from the concert have only created ripples on the internet!

Arivarasu Kalainesan, an engineering graduate, is one of the lyricists and rapper in the band who authored 10 songs. “I am born and brought up in a slum. I have grown up watching the hardship of discrimination in the name of caste people go through. I used to read and write a lot of poems in school and when I joined college, I got the opportunity to write lyrics for our college band. I gave an audition at Neelam Cultural Centre and I was chosen to work with the band. It’s good to see how through music, people have understood a century old issue.”

And this wouldn’t have been possible without director Pa Ranjith, who always wanted to bring gaana on a big stage.

Says Ranjith, “For me, art and music is a political tool. I want to highlight social issues through art and music, issues that have been there since centuries but have failed to bring about a change. Gaana is in the blood of every child who is born in the slums of north Madras, the same locality where I come from. They are so skilled yet so far behind in many aspects of life. I want to change that.”

Ranjith’s organisation, Neelam Cultural Centre, collaborated with the label ‘Madras Records’ to form ‘The Casteless Collective’, inspired by a Tamil phrase ‘jaathi ilaathu Tamilargal’, used by Tamil anticaste activist and writer C Iyothee Thass. “This collective goes beyond the barriers of caste. And all of us have one aim — zero discrimination in the name of caste and religion though our tool — music and art,” added Ranjith.

That’s when he decided to collaborate with the music composer, Tenma. “We conducted workshops to understand and found a way to bring fusion of gaana, folk, hiphop, rap and rock. It’s more like creating a new genre of music, which has too many elements — powerful stories, percussion instruments like katte and chatti, which are played during funeral processions — and there are rappers and beat boxers. Everyone has an individual personality. I had to conduct them like a gospel choir, more like African gospel because there are too many of everything together,” says Tenma.

The artistes are not only from Tamil Nadu, but also Mumbai’s Dharavi’s rap trio, Dopeadelicz. This rap trio has also worked with Ranjith in Kaala.

Source: The Times of Inida dt 13.01.2018