Nepalese hip hop
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Nepalese hip hop music also referred as NEPHOP has a slight blend from nepalese traditional music (usually a madal) and with lyrics that are usually altruistic and depicting the present Nepalese political and economic situation. However there are few others (such as Politics Uncle, Sarad Singh, Kotho and Sammy Samrat) who in contrast choose to write about wealth, power and other factors which are a common scene with hip hop music in the West.
Hiphop in Nepal started getting popular around the late 90's with Snoop Dogg and Eminem as one of the first Western artists introduced in Nepal through Indian TV channels. However hip hop did not gain much popularity in India and on the contrary was spreading fire through the younger Nepalese generation.
Around 2002-2003 Nepalese rap was commercialised for the first time in Nepal by rappers such as NSK and Girish & Pranil. However the Nepalese hip hop market had not reached a big audience to compete with the Western rappers who were winning over the Nepalese rappers in their own country. Hip hop still had to work through the Nepalese streets to reach the people in the suburban areas and win over the audience who prefered Nepali (as lyrics) over English (also as lyrics).
This time came around 2004-2005 when commercial artists arrived in the Nepalese hip hop scene with lyrics which the younger Nepalese generation could relate to. Rappers Girish & Pranil had a hit "Ma Yasto Chu" which probably elevated the Nepalese hip hop scene a bit to reach a level which could boost other Nepalese hip hop artists. And soon enough Nepalese rappers published their music underground even though the audience were usually Nepalese living in the United States and seldom audience from Nepal the underground internet Nepalese hip hop scene was booming and artists such as Kotho were gaining popularity among Nepalese and even Americans in Southern USA. In 2005 the Nepsydaz commercialised a remix song originally done by Aroz (Underground artist) which marketed as a great hit in Nepal and among other Nepalese audiences all over the world. With his humorous disses to fellow emcees and rebellious underground music that has affected a generation of nephoppers worldwide, Cyclops is generally thought of as the greatest nephop emcee of all-time.
2005 was the year which one might mark as the official beginning to the Nepalese hip hop scene through rappers such as NSK, Rappaz Union, Sammy Samrat, 9double7, Kotho, Nepsydaz, Aroz and many more.
