Artist Biography
MC Altaf, an 18-year old rapper from Dharavi in Mumbai has a song in Zoya Akhtars Gully Boy, out in 2019. He’s also released his first music video on YouTube called Wassup! made in collaboration with New York rapper, Jay Killa. And his new best friend Ranveer Singh even has a cameo in it.
Mc Altaf has been appeared in channels as follow: Zee Music Company, Mass Appeal India.
MC Altaf, an 18-year old fledgling rapper from Dharavi in Mumbai has a song in Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy, out in 2019. He’s also released his first music video on YouTube this month “Wassup!” made in collaboration with New York rapper, Jay Killa. And his new best friend Ranveer Singh even has a cameo in it.
Amid these great highs in his life, Altaf Shaikh has just one worry: The fact that his rising fame in Mumbai’s hip-hop scene will make collaborators ask him to rap on love and ladki (girls). But “Mera toh yeh style nahi hai (That’s not my style),” he tells me. “I write on social causes, about what’s happening in the country, about my life in the ’hood. I’m a hardcore rapper.”
The Beginning:
Growing up in Dharavi, Altaf had a rough childhood. He watched the hostility between Hindus and Muslims in the city, infused with a sense of terror. At his “posh school” in Mahim, he says he was a “kharab bacha”, picking fights and bullying other kids. His parents were called often to the school. “I had a lot of fun in school, lot of masti,” he recalls. “It was a school for good kids. [But the] teachers were tired of me.” Altaf was eventually expelled because of his behaviour. And the principal made sure no other school would take him in—his school-leaving certificate was marked with a red line, highlighting him as a problem child. After multiple rejections, his father finally admitted him to a municipal school. “I was in class III or IV,” Altaf says. And he started to blame the kids in his neighbourhood for his disciplinary issues.
But why did you beat up other children, I ask. “I wanted everyone to listen to me. I didn’t want anyone to tell me what to do.” It’s this flouting of rules that informs Altaf’s rap. He calls it ‘rage rap’.
The Journey:
In his new school, Altaf met kids who were into sutta (cigarettes) and music. It was their only escape. It was also where he was introduced to B-boying and rap. “Dance ka craze hogaya (I fell in love with dance),” he says, saying how he had now decided to become a dancer. “Koi aur career option bhi nahi tha (I had no other career option). I wanted my friends to notice me. To praise me.”
But B-boying jama nahi (I didn’t enjoy it that much), he says. Why? “I wanted friends to respect me. But I couldn’t do some steps. I loved to rap though.” The neighbourhood kids were already into it, listening to 50 Cent. One day during the annual 11-day Ganpati festival, he saw his first crew rap on stage. It was another Mumbai rapper, Tony Sebastian’s crew. And Altaf was hooked. The truth in Tony Sebastian’s song—“ Aai Shapath Saheb, Me Navtho” (I swear sir, it was not me)—made him aspire to do something similar. “He was rapping about real things like social justice and weed,” Altaf says.
