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Nepalese hip hop music ("NEPHOP") is a blend of Nepalese traditional music, western popular music, with lyrics that are usually altruistic and depicting the present Nepalese political and economic situation. However there are few others who in contrast choose to write about wealth, power and other factors which are a common scene with hip hop music in the West.


[edit] History
Hiphop in Nepal started getting popular around the '90s with Snoop Dogg and Eminem as one of the first western artists introduced in Nepal through MTV, Channel V etc. 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 that large audience to compete with the western rappers who were winning over the Nepalese rappers in their own country. Nepalese Hip hop still had to work through the Nepalese streets to reach an audience that preferred Nepali over English (as lyrics).

In 2003, NYC based underground rapper Aroz started the first Nepalese hiphop website nephop.com (now defunct) which became the pivotal platform to spearhead the Nepalese Underground hiphop movement. The term "Nephop" soon gained worldwide popularity and is being accepted to define Nepalese Hiphop in general. In 2004, Aroz released his first underground single "Chudaina", produced by pioneer producer DJ AJ sampling 1974 A.D in nephop.com. In 2005, Nepsydaz gained a commercial success as a rap group when they released their version of the same song. Aroz became "the most controversial"[1] rapper to experiment with "Dirty Rap" with his next single "Katti Khep Vannu"[2]. After a massive underground success of his single, he quickly released his next single, "Killin Terraces"[3]. The Germany based New Urban Music Blog [4] in its review hailed "Killing Terraces" as one of the "best" Nepalese political raps.

Around 2003–2004, when commercial artists emerged in the Nepalese hip hop scene with lyrics the urban younger Nepalese generation could relate to. And soon enough Nepalese rappers published their music underground even though the audience were usually Nepalese living in the United States and seldom from Nepal, the underground internet Nepalese hip hop scene was booming.

However with all this publicity of hip hop in Nepal the popularity is running rampant and people who do not have the skill that it takes to be an emcee have steeped up on stage to negatively represent hip hop as an impetus towards crime. This order has brought a negative remark to hip hop from a lot of Nepalese people.

Hiphop in Nepal started getting popular around the '90s with 'Gangsta Paradise' by Collio and 'ice ice baby' by Vanilla ice through Nepal's state owned NTV's sunday POP and various programs on MTV. In 1997 Nepali RAP pioneers Girish-Pranil (GP) released Nepal's first RAP album 'meaningless rap'. It was the first successful experiment with RAP which had Nepali lyrics and the context was pakka-Nepali. Contrary to their second album, GP's meaningless rap had a lot of meaningful songs and clean lyrics. Their "hami dherai sana chhnau" is Nepal's first ever socio-political RAP. Despite powerful lyrics, the song was a flop because it failed to mesmerize the audience. However, the reggae inspired "timi ko hau" was a commercial hit and helped the album reach platinum status (sales exceeded 25,000 copies which was almost double platinum in context to Nepal). The first ever RAP album that reached beyond the english song listening-cool type-loaded-fun loving-college educatd demography was GP's second album 'back again'. The powerful number "ma yesto chhu" crossed all boundaries, enraged the critics, dared the contemporary media, instigated the general public's awareness, shifted the paradigm and made RAP a household genre in Nepal. This song single handedly made GP the epitome of Nepali RAP, fueled the musical career of sudin pokharel aka da'69 and established rajeev as the most powerful Nepali RAP lyricist. This was soon followed by the success of NSK. However, Nepali RAP still lacked the core virtues of RAP, politically powerful lyrics and a good music. As a result, western rappers were still winning over the Nepalese rappers in their own country. Nepalese Hip hop still had to work through the Nepalese streets to reach an audience that preferred Nepali over English (as lyrics).

In 2003, NYC based underground rapper Aroz started the first Nepalese hiphop website nephop.com (now defunct) which became the pivotal platform to spearhead the Nepalese Underground hiphop movement. The term "Nephop" soon gained worldwide popularity and is being accepted to define Nepalese Hiphop in general. In 2004, Aroz released his first underground single "Chudaina", produced by pioneer producer DJ AJ sampling 1974 A.D in nephop.com. In 2005, Nepsydaz gained a commercial success as a rap group when they released their version of the same song. Aroz became "the most controversial"[1] rapper to experiment with "Dirty Rap" with his next single "Katti Khep Vannu"[2]. After a massive underground success of his single, he quickly released his next single, "Killin Terraces"[3]. The Germany based New Urban Music Blog [4] in its review hailed "Killing Terraces" as one of the "best" Nepalese political raps.

Around 2003–2004, when commercial artists emerged in the Nepalese hip hop scene with lyrics the urban younger Nepalese generation could relate to. And soon enough Nepalese rappers published their music underground even though the audience were usually Nepalese living in the United States and seldom from Nepal, the underground internet Nepalese hip hop scene was booming.

However with all this publicity of hip hop in Nepal the popularity is running rampant and people who do not have the skill that it takes to be an emcee have steeped up on stage to negatively represent hip hop as an impetus towards crime. This order has brought a negative remark to hip hop from a lot of Nepalese people.

Source:Wikipedia.