Researched by: Sara Varghese 

First, the controversy

The story: Rolling Stone India did a big cover story that focused on two songs and two indie artists: Dhee and Shan Vincent de Paul. The Tamil songs: ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ and ‘Neeye Oli’. The magazine also gave a lot of attention to maajja—the record label and music platform that released the two tracks. Dhee and De Paul were featured on the cover, like so:

The glaring omission: The Tamil rap star Arivu who wrote the lyrics to and sang ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ alongside Dhee. He also co-wrote ‘Neeye Oli’. But there is only one quote from him—in stark contrast to the many paragraphs devoted to everyone else involved in the creation of these songs, including the producer, founders of maajja etc. 

The outrage: was sparked by a tweet by Tamil director Pa Ranjith who said: 

“Arivu, the lyricist of Neeyaoli and Singer as well as lyricist of Enjoy Enjaami has once again been invisibilized. Rolling Stone India and maajja, is it difficult to understand that the lyrics of both the songs challenges this erasure of public acknowledgement?”

The pattern: This is just the latest example of how Arivu has been airbrushed out of his own work. For starters, he was relegated to a secondary role from the outset. The song itself is credited as sung by Dhee featuring Arivu. And maajja arranged a remix of the song with Paris-based DJ Snake which got rid of Arivu’s vocals entirely. The banner advertising that collab on Times Square in New York reduced Arivu to a footnote:

The response: Rolling Stone hilariously tried to compensate for its omissions by sending out gushing tweets and Insta posts spotlighting Arivu—and pretending he was a big part of the original story. Twitter folks did a far better job of acknowledging Arivu by redesigning the cover image like so:

The included vs the excluded

So why is everyone so angry? The answer lies in comparing who made the cut—and who was erased.

Meet Dhee: Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Australia, Dhee aka Dheekshitha Venkadeshan has an impeccable musical heritage. Her mother Meenakshi Iyer is a well-known name in music circles—and comes from a long line of musicians. Her stepfather, Santosh Narayanan, is a highly successful music producer—and has produced most of Dhee’s songs for Tamil films, and now the big standalone hit ‘Enjoy Enjaami’. Dhee’s previous claim to fame: the very successful ‘Rowdy Baby’, a duet with Tamil actor Dhanush. 

Point to note: Dhee’s upcoming debut album is in English because: “I wish I could write in Tamil but it would probably take five to 10 years for me to learn Tamil. I can speak the language but not creatively write. Maybe, I will do it one day.”

Meet Arivu: He was born and raised in a small town called Arakkonam—which is about 70 km from Chennai. His father is a college professor, and his mother a government school teacher. His grandmother was a tea plantation worker in Sri Lanka—who returned to Tamil Nadu to work menial jobs to care for her children. There was no money for luxuries like a television at home, but Arivu’s parents saved to put him in a private school, and he went on to get an engineering degree and an MBA. His big break into the music industry: A chance encounter on a train with Pa Ranjith’s associate. Ranjith has since been a highly valued mentor. Of his music—infused in themes of caste struggle—and career success, Arivu says:

“My grandfather accepted oppression as a way of life. Even today, he wouldn’t walk straight into a home of a dominant caste person. He would say he doesn’t want to offend them… I realise the generational shift when I go in a car to a street where my grandfather couldn’t have walked in slippers. And that makes me acutely aware of my own responsibility.”

Not just about Dhee: While everyone has focused on her caste and class privilege, The News Minute makes an important point—no one is calling out maajja:

“As much as Dhee has a say in how she was represented in the video, it’s also the directors of the video, the PR people who arrange for magazine features or collaborations with other artists who play an important role in representation. But they are not easily visible to the public eye which is why we can’t pull them up and ask for accountability. Rather than asking for accountability from Dhee, we have to ask for accountability from the production company – maajja – which has such close ties to Tamil Nadu. It would have been aware of the anti-caste, Periyarist history of the state but has still taken the decision to ignore it and let Dhee take centerstage and erase Arivu.” 

The invisible elephant: caste

In its cover story, Rolling Stone notes: “Arivu makes us think about the politics of marginalization, caste and how generations have survived in the face of oppression.” Clearly, its editors did not think too hard about any of that stuff—since that is the only mention of the word ‘caste’ in the entire story. But caste is at the very root of the song that helped Dhee make the Rolling Stone cover—which is ironically titled ‘Back to the Roots’.

About that song: ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ is Arivu’s tribute to his grandmother Valliama—and to countless landless lower caste peasants who toiled on land that will never be theirs. One of the lines goes: “Naan anju maram valarthen… Azhagana thottam vachchen… Thottam sezhithaalum en thonda nanaiyalaye.” (I planted five trees and nurtured a beautiful garden. Though my garden is flourishing, my throat remains dry). Also this:

“My grandmother was taken to Sri Lanka as a bonded labourer, and when she returned, nothing had changed. We continued to live landless. She educated my mother by doing dishes in several houses. Because of her, my mother became an educationist, and as a result I am an artist. She struggled throughout her life and made several sacrifices to make our lives better. So, of course I wanted to make a mention of her. I will continue to write many more songs about her if given an opportunity.”

As Arivu makes clear, the caste is in the very title:

“‘It’s why ‘Enjoy’ is in the title. It means to be festive and celebrate one’s roots,’ Arivu says. ‘Enjaami is an endearment, a word my grandmother would fondly use to address me. It’s from ‘en saami, literally, ‘my lord’. It’s also a term landless labourers would use to refer to their masters’.”

You can watch it here:

Part of a movement: Arivu is not alone—but part of a new generation of anti-caste musicians who are not afraid to wear their politics in their lyrics. Arivu is part of the Casteless Collective—which is an ensemble band of 19 members from marginalised communities. Its founder Pa Ranjith says:

“‘The objective of forming this collective was to create a counterculture… There is a notion that Dalits are devoid of any cultural identity, but the reality is contrary,’ he said. ‘Music and art are omnipresent in their lives. It is not something that they acquire, but it is inbred.’”

Their music fuses traditions of gaana—a genre of Dalit urban folk songs from the streets of northern Chennai—with rock and rap music. And they are often accompanied by instruments considered “impure” because they are played by the Dalit community during funeral processions. And the themes are subversive: beef, manual scavenging, LGBTQ issues, violence against women, corruption and land grabs.

Also this: Dalit rap isn’t confined to the South. There is also The-Lit Boy aka Sumeet Samos who is a JNU postgraduate from Orissa. And Ginni Mahi, a 22-year-old from Punjab whose biggest hit is a song titled ‘Danger Chamar’.

Big irony alert: In the Rolling Stone story, Dhee says of her recent success: “I feel very seen.”

The bottomline: belongs to Bharathy Singaravel in The News Minute who writes:

“‘Enna kora, enna kora, yein chella peraandikku enna kora?’— this line supposed to be as sung by Valiammal, Arivu’s grandmother in ‘Enjoy Enjaami’, already asks the question that maajja, Rolling Stone India and everyone involved in the erasure of Arivu from his own songs need to answer: ‘In what way is my darling grandson any less?’”

Reading list

You can start by reading the Rolling Stone cover story. The News Minute has the most incisive take on the controversy. Feminism In India analyses the caste politics of ‘Enjoy Enjaami’, while Indian Express critiques the upper caste bias in the video. If you want to know more about Arivu, check profiles of his work in The Wire and The Week. Also, check out his other notable songs, including ‘Anti Indian’ and ‘Sanda seivom’. On a lighter note, here he is lip syncing ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ with his grandmother. The Hindu has an interview with Dhee if you want to know more about her. Caravan magazine and The Guardian profile the Casteless Collective. Finally, The Wire has a very good read on how casteism colours so-called desi rap.