Unless you live under a rock, you know bout the major Rap Controversy making it big nowadays. It’s basically an Indianised version of the Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly controversy, full with diss tracks and the lot!
There has been back and forth non stop banter between the said rappers which started with Emiway Bantai dropping a diss song called ‘Samajh me Aaya Kya‘ to which Raftaar responded with his own diss track ‘Sheikh Chilli‘ leading to Emiway’s response to Raftaar’s response to hiss diss track with ‘Giraftaar‘ (we’re not losing our breath we swear).
This epic started with Emiway (Real Name: Bilaal Sheikh) taking certain statements made by Raftaar (Real Name: Dilin Nair) out of context and weighing in on the latter via a diss track in the Indian Hip-Hop Rap genre called “Samajh Me Aaya Kya’. The lyrics talk about him being self-made and not needing anyone to get to where he is at this point. Despite a telling line where he says he once looked up to Raftaar, and what changed his mind and made him believe otherwise.
Now this track went hella viral, like it hit a home run. The constant buzz around this Song was enough to make the quite in-demand rapper in Bollywood, Raftaar (who has quite the rags to riches story) rile up with provocation and respond with his diss track, named ‘Sheikh Chilli’ in and around a hangar and straightforwardly pointed it out that he now is dripping in money and success and offered his version of the story, implying that Bantai was swimming in the waters of half truths.
He even questioned his authenticity, blatantly calling him out on his stage name: Emiway is a word-play on his inspiration; Eminem. also that he goes by the name Shahrukh Sheikh when his real name is Bilaal.
He raps on about how the scene is bleeding and that, while hip-hop is growing in India, the opportunities have diminished. He explains in detail why fellow rappers Divine and Naezy (who’ve both had rags-to-riches stories and who Emiway called out) got to the platform where they now are (Gully Boys is a Bollywood movie being made on the street hip-hop scene in Mumbai and is supposed to be about their journey).
If you’re familiar with Raftaar’s story, you’ll know that he got to where he is by sheer hard-work and consistently succeeding despite hiccups. You are aware of his struggle. How he went from being a backup dancer to an underground rap artist to mainstream success.
The thing about Giraftaar; Emiway’s response to Sheikh Chilli, is that at this point, Emiway sounds genuinely offended about Raftaar bringing his religion and name into the narrative. And it shows. He counters each of Raftaar’s barbs with his version of the story, daring him to tell “the truth” about their brief encounter over #Sadak.
Now to this again Raftaar responded with yet another track called ‘Awein Hai’ which honestly we have no words for….
This was basically a diss track four dialogue conversation between both the rappers, entertaining the entire country and blessing them with bomb-ass songs as well. The war seemes to be raging with no hope for it simmering down by even a notch.
With so much hype around this battle, it was very likely for someone to step in and try to put sand instead of kerosene on the blaze. Ranveer Singh posted a video on his Instagram handle tagging both the rappers, with him hilariously lip syncing to a “desh premiyon” song, encouraging them to make peace amongst themselves.
On this post Raftaar commented that it wasn’t meant to escalate this far and that he meant no hate and that he was done. He then proceeded to go live on YouTube and said that he wanted to end this battle and that it should be over. This was then followed by Emiway going live and also putting an end to the feud and then dropping ANOTHER track, Khatam which has by now garnered more than 5 million views.
We have one question popping into our minds still: ‘Is this finally over? And was this a well planned and strategic battle for mutual benefit of both rappers or is it really an all-out diss war between them?’
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