Duleshwar Tandi, who records under the name Dule Rocker, knows exactly what his music isn’t about. “My rap isn’t to please you,” the 27-ye...
Duleshwar Tandi, who records under the name Dule Rocker, knows exactly what his music isn’t about.
“My rap isn’t to please you,” the 27-year-old said in a phone interview from Bhubaneshwar, where he lives. “It’s not for your entertainment and your parties and dancing.”
Equally, the part-time construction worker from Odisha’s Kalahandi district knows just what he wants people to get out of his music: “I write about social and political issues that are important for people to know.”
Tandi shot to national attention in July 2020 when he released a tune in which he raps in his native dialect Kalahandia about the migrant crisis created by the hasty Covid-19 lockdown imposed by the Union government.
In Kalahandi district, Duleshwar Tandi – ‘Rapper Dule Rocker’ – a tuition teacher, construction worker and occasional migrant, expresses anguish through this song at the plight of migrants in the lockdown. @DuleRocker pic.twitter.com/3uVc9g4soD
— People's Archive of Rural India (@PARInetwork) July 8, 2020
This fortnight, he was back on many social media timelines when he announced a fundraiser to help produce his first full-length album titled Annihilation of Caste, named after an undelivered speech by BR Ambedkar.
The album will address the plight of the “poor and marginalised, who face atrocities at the hands of the government”, Tandi said. This...
