Gen Z and the hip-hop boom

Luck, A-Gan, D₹V, Arivu, K4 Kekho — the next generation is coming up strong with help from mentors and initiatives geared towards amping up the Indian scene

In between selling shirts and trousers at a readymade textile shop in Bhilwara, Lucky Samtani found his calling in hip-hop. It is a passion that began in the eighth standard when the Rajasthani rapper (better known as Luck) was introduced to Eminem and, much later, to Raftaar, one of the OGs of the Indian hip-hop scene. Luck, 22, began teaching himself music production and rapping online. And soon things began changing for him. Last year, in the midst of the pandemic, he found a collaborator in ace producer Sez On The Beat, re-released his older song ‘Love Again’ on Sony Music India’s imprint Artisttaan, and even got into producing and sound engineering. “After the pandemic hit, business went down and I didn’t have a job. So all my time went into music,” he tells me. He now works at his family-run shoe store, but it’s more to get a “vibe change”, he explains. “You get bored just sitting and doing the same thing. If I get to see and meet different people, I get a new vibe.”