Kerala’s Hip-Hop Uprising: The Politics Behind Vedan’s Stardom and Scrutiny

On 18 May 2025, a mini-stampede in the field near Palakkad’s historic fort left 15 persons injured. A mad rush of people had made the organisers close the entry to a program before it started. People still managed to push in. The artist arrived over an hour late, after some amount of crowd control had been achieved. The crowd rose back up in fervour as the artist took the stage. Some fell unconscious out of a combination of excitement and exhaustion. The rapper popularly known as Vedan had come to perform in Palakkad. With the crowd surging, the situation became hard to manage and the artist had to leave mid-set. The police eventually lathi-charged the crowd as a last resort crowd control.The incident took place after Vedan's recent arrest over a marijuana possession case in April and a few days before the arrest of an RSS leader for hate speech against Vedan in May.When the band 'Oorali' first introduced the anti-caste rapper at an anti-CAA protest stage in Kochi in 2019, they could hardly have foreseen the immense popularity and controversy that Vedan would stoke among his fans and critics.Hirandas Murali, now known by his stage name ‘Vedan’, was born landless. His grandfather had been evicted from the land he tilled. Vedan’s father, Murali, married a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee woman and moved to a railway colony in Thrissur, where he did construction work for a living. Murali was from the Panan caste, a Scheduled Caste in Kerala that is historically associated with music—Vedan recollects the early influence of his grandmother’s folk tunes and musical ideas.Before he adopted the name, Vedan, he worked as a daily wager. No one in his family had the habit of reading books.Reading is a skill that he cultivated as he made new friends. This brought him in touch with the political insights that he would later use in his songs. In a stint as a studio assistant to the editor-director B Ajithkumar, he was exposed to music of different genres and was attracted to rap. Divine and Tupac Shakur were lasting influences.Vedan’s first music video, ‘Voice of the Voiceless’, was shot in a broken-down house in Thrissur railway colony, with a budget of Rs 10,000. It quickly went viral on YouTube in 2020 for its raw energy and gripping lyrics. At the same time, he was lauded for bringing the reality of caste into discussion, coming out as Dalit.Being Refugee & Dalit Is a Double Burden: Tamil Rapper Arivu“At the very nadir of historical catastrophe,” American author Marshall Berman stated dramatically, “rap was born.” The form was a vehicle for the cultural side of social justice movements epicentered in the Bronx, and showed signs of genius well into the 1990s. Just as in the US, rap came to Kerala on the back of new technology. The 2010s had seen the emergence of Dalit rap, with young artists across the country using digital tools to sing about their lives. Berman’s statement rings as true for them as it did for the rappers of Bronx. Vedan was among this new crop of Dalit rappers.By 2020, a small-scale economy had emerged where one could get rap “beats” and “tracks” for as little as a thousand rupees, with studios ready to record, mix and master songs for a few thousand more. The technical barrier to making music was quickly lowered with the arrival and proliferation of digital technology, just like the electric music equipment and tapes had made the first pulses of rap possible.A few viral videos meant that Vedan began to get platformed. He performed at Para Hiphop Festival organised by Kochi Music Foundation along with other rap/hiphop artists like Fejo, Dabzee, NJ, Street Academics and Indulekha Warrier. Hip-hop was rising as an independent music genre in Kerala, but the own individual social lives of the artists and art seemed mutually exclusive, even if they raised common questions of gender and sometimes tackled religious and political prejudices in their rap. On the contrary, rather than letting his caste background and political outlook stick out like a sore thumb among Malayali hip-hop artists, Vedan turned it into his USP. His earthy dialect, Tamil phrases, and autobiographical references stood out.In time, Vedan developed two kinds of audiences and supporters. One was the mostly-middle-class crowd centred in the bigger towns of Kerala. The other was a more nationally spread out group of Malayali progressive activists and their friend circles. Both these networks were shattered by sexual assault allegations raised against Vedan by anonymous women in a Facebook post in 2021, as part of the MeToo movement.Vedan apologised on social media and quickly, though quietly. retracted those statements. While the allegations never reached court, Vedan's career faced the brunt. A project that would have seen him collaborate with the Tamil rapper Arivu and playback singer Chinmayi was shelved, never to come out. It would have been the biggest release of his career so far.After a period of hiatus, Vedan and his associates—those who had remained—took stock of the situation and came to a decision. It wasn’t a good idea to depend on the goodwill of progressive networks that instrumentalised art. They planned his revival: this time, they would rely on the market.This cross-caste group of educated youngsters working with Vedan connected via friendships, launched three companies: AltPlus for talent management, Right Brain Syndrome for production and Karuppu Records for recording and releases. Vedan shifted his focus from mainstream caste politics to elevating hip-hop as a genre.‘Buddhanayi Pira’ brought Vedan’s music back into the public. Over the next three years, a gradual and studied growth followed, paralleled by the rising stock of hip-hop itself. Vedan made it into a few films with his trademark songs. One of his film songs, ‘Kuthanthram’, got a boost when Sanju Samson posted a line from it in celebration of achievement — “clothes stitched out of sweat”. The new Vedan had a much farther reach, and used platforms that were uncommon for hip-hop artists. He had cultivated cross-generational, cross-caste and cross-class fans, ranging from policemen to homemaker women, singing at both international venues and at local temple festivals.Meanwhile, the surge in popularity has also brought back ghosts of the past. The sexual assault allegations have resurfaced. In a report by southern media platform, complainants claim that the artists never apologised to them, depsite his public apology. Vedan has stayed quiet about the allegations. So far, no complaint has been filed and the survivors have stated their unwillingness to pursue the case due to lack of resources. Hanumankind’s 'Big Dawgs': The Indian Rapper Who Took Over American Hip HopMeanwhile, the government of Kerala was preparing for a statewide crackdown on drugs. Drug-related crimes had shot up among the youth and caught the media’s attention. The cinema and entertainment industry were identified as a hotspot. Some prominent figures were raided and caught red-handed. On 28 April 2025, the police raided Vedan’s apartment in Kochi. Some marijuana was seized. On the back of a saga of high-profile drug cases, this seemed like a hot catch for Malayalam TV channels.The coverage and handling of the case quickly acquired a humiliating tone, as pointed out by Dalit intellectuals in the region. Added to the usual insensitivity of regional media was a harsh reaction against Vedan’s political commentary, and an array of pro-government voices who justified the treatment.As Vedan’s co-accused were let out on bail, he was slapped with a new non-bailable case — for having poached and possessed a leopard’s tooth.It was reported that the police had intentions of investigating his ‘Sri Lankan mother’, who had passed three years back. Kerala’s Minister for Forests and Wildlife Protection, AK Saseendran, sent out a strong statement that the government intends to move forward with the prosecution.In a knee-jerk reaction to the news, Vedan’s programs were cancelled, notably one in which he was asked to perform at a government event. The CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby came down against Vedan. It seemed CPI(M) and the government wanted nothing to do with him. The chorus of his supporters gained pace, however.However, the tide was slowly turning even in the media. Responding to the public outcry, the critical coverage mellowed down. Reports came out about the harsh and vengeful tone of some police officers in the case. It was becoming clear that this was caste-based harassment, by which a Dalit is given the maximum possible humiliation for the minimum of crimes. In between all this, Vedan calmly announces the release of his next song. ‘Mauna Loa’ hit fifteen million views on YouTube and Spotify in just a month.While Vedan was granted bail in the poaching case, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was asked about the Vedan case by a reporter at a press conference. The CM responded that the matter should be “handled with care.”The statement seemed to turn the tide tide among Communists with CPI(M) State secretary MV Govindan showering high praise on Vedan in its wake. AK Saseendran blamed the forest officials for misleading him while MP John Brittas came out in the musician's support, followed by pro-Communist intellectuals who had hitherto been quiet. Vedan's cancelled performance at the government event was reinstated. Some of the more radical and adventure-prone Sangh intellectuals found an opportunity. Hindu Aikya Vedi state president KP Sasikala was furious that Vedan would not practice the traditional art forms of his caste.She was met with widespread ridicule for her unsaid notion that one should stick to one’s own caste profession. A municipal councillor from BJP filed a complaint with NIA alleging Vedan had insulted the prime minister. Her own party leadership reportedly castigated her. NR Madhu—the chief editor of Kesari, a publication run by RSS intellectuals in Kerala—accused Vedan of “casteist terrorism.” He was charged with hate speech, arrested and let out on bail. The Kerala police, which usually elides cases of hate speech against Sangh-affiliated persons, chose to act swiftly this time. Akin to the Sabarimala saga of 2018-19, this eventually created a caste polarisation in the state. But while the BJP had benefited with the help of upper caste groups previously, this time it was at a loss. A wider support for Vedan and the lack of a religious angle made sure that the Left came out unscathed.Inclusion of RSS Ideologues’ Work in Uni Syllabus 'Problematic': Kerala MinisterThe controversy seems to have catapulted Vedan from ordinary fame to superstardom. People are flooding to watch him across the state. In pop culture, meta-reference is the sign of true superstardom. Vedan had a habit of referring to himself in the third person occasionally, but his personality has become a whole lot bigger now. The self-referential ‘Vaa Daa Veda’, originally intended to be a promotional song for the movie Narivetta was included in theatre runs after popular demand. The music video for ‘Theruvinte Mon’ released just last week also features his father and sister. His biggest songs have crores of views.Vedan’s total repertoire is only in the lower double digits. Popular Malayalam singers have hundreds to their names — either having composed or sung them. But as traditional film music and performance troupes decline, Vedan is rising fast to fill the gap along with other hip-hop artists.The writer and critic Johny ML referred to the Dalit musician, comedian and actor Kalabhavan Mani as the first rockstar of Kerala. Vedan hums Mani’s songs on stage, and expresses his indebtedness to him; but Vedan might be on his way to surpass Mani and become the biggest rockstar in Kerala yet.(Jaya Thampi is a research scholar at the Department of Cultural Studies, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Arjun Ramachandran is a research scholar at the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the authors' own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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Who Is Vedan? The Anti-Caste Rapper at the Centre of Kerala’s Culture Wars

Rather than letting his caste background stick out like a sore thumb, Vedan turned it into his USP.

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