Gully Boy is surely a revolutionary album in terms of the long term effects it would have on the music landscape of our country. Hip-Hop was meant to be a rebellious art form and that’s exactly what the soundtrack of this movie accomplishes. Songs like ‘Azaadi’ and ‘Jingostan’ by the underrated gem ‘Dub Sharma’ are anti-establishment considering their politically charged lyrics and may put off many of those who are overtly nationalistic in their world view.
But the most interesting aspect of this album is not its music but its music label. It is owned by ‘Zee Music’ whose parent body ‘Zee Media’ is headed by ‘Dr. Subhash Chandra‘, a dedicated philanthropist who also happens to be a close aide and supporter of PM Narendra Modi. Now, this is a very curious thing to explore as the current government’s rule has been marked by silencing the voices of the people, and this album has songs which does anything but that.
The term ‘Jingoism’ (which has gained a lot of traction under this regime), which means aggressive nationalism promoted by an organization in a country, is actually openly promoted by our government. The song ‘Jingostan’ openly mocks this term and ramifications on the society. Same goes with the song ‘Azaadi’, which is derived from the famous Kanhaiya Kumar speech in JNU in the year 2016.
One needs to wait out and see how things pan out. But it also needs to be appreciated that a creative company is not impacted by the political leanings of its chairperson. I hope this conflict of interest will not lead to any sort of negative impact on the release of this film as this is an album which is relevant to our times and also brings forth an exciting genre of music which has been ignored for a long time. This voice of the streets, and the real music of the streets, needs to be heard and celebrated.