The 1984 riots in India that followed the death of Indira Gandhi, the then-Prime Minister of India, left a scar on the country’s conscience. If any current artists from Singapore are to gain international attention, Yung Raja and Fariz Jabba could well be the ones in 2020. Where Raja’s work is catchier, polished, and more bass-heavy, Jabba’s music sounds like its potential hasn’t been fully unlocked he sings and raps on his tracks, which arguably sound like some of the most interesting contemporary electronic music in the region. Jabba is the younger brother of Singaporean comedian Fakkah Fuzz, but Jabba has already overshot his brother in terms of hometown popularity. Its infectious hook, “Call Me Young Mustafa / Brown Superstar,” is sung in English, which separates him stylistically from Fariz Jabba, who raps mostly in Malay. On Yung Raja’s version of the song, ‘Poori Gang’, he raps in Tamil and English about South Indian cuisine - toeing the line between boastful and hilarious, with a wacky sense of confidence.Ī first-generation Singaporean - his family are from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu - Raja’s debut single ‘Mustafa’ got him so much attention at home that it became his jumping off point to play internationally.
Although they work as solo artists, they’re so sonically and aesthetically related that for their early, viral hits, they both remixed Lil Pump’s ‘Gucci Gang’. With their cropped, dyed hair and charming personalities, Singaporean rappers Yung Raja and Fariz Jabba could be mistaken for a duo. Even now, I feel like hip-hop itself is shifting more and more to Asia. It just so happens that I’m a female, too, so the importance is amplified. Slowly but surely, I wanna prove that I can make it while - alongside other dope rappers in the region - shifting the attention to Asia more. “It’s not easy for Asian rappers to ‘make it’, especially in Indonesia, where hip-hop culture is still in its premature state. to show the world outside Asia that we’re dope too!” she says. “I feel like each one of us is collectively trying to make it out there. “A lot of us are trying to copy that, and it’s not easy to get out of that tendency because they’re blowin’ up everywhere.” Though she may be one of the country’s rising stars, and a unique reference point when it comes to South-East Asian rap, she doesn’t want to be pigeonholed. “I feel like a lot of rappers in the scene are too focused on what’s happening out there, with Migos, Travis Scott, Playboi Carti,” she tells DJ Mag. For Ramengvrl, it comes from a postcolonial mentality that influences what’s considered necessary in order to break into the US and European industries. In countries like Indonesia, musicians can easily go international by crafting formulaic pop songs sung in English. Ramengvrl’s hooks are catchy, but she’s stone-cold serious with them, too: using her lyrics to challenge the status quo and take shots at a patriarchal, sexist music industry.
Her debut 10-track mixtape, ‘no bethany’, shows off her knack for playfulness, at turns goofy and serious in the same 16 bars. Her skeletal beats feel alive, somehow: squishing, chiming, and bouncing around, as her staccato rhymes grab at them.
Indonesian rapper and producer Ramengvrl makes trap music with a twist.
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