http://www.epaperoheraldo.in/Details.aspx?id=9432&boxid=172419187&uid=&dat=11/23/2014
Rapping his way out Indian born rapper Chee Malabar uses his music to express his immigrant experiences in America where he grew up as he is set to release his new album, Feral Child at Goa Art and Literary Festival 2014 By DIANA FERNANDES | 23 Nov, 2014, 07:47PM IST The lyrics to Chee Malabar’s song Bitter Brightness from the upcoming album Feral Child gives one the sense of what life was like for a 12 year old Indian living in 90’s America. “I ain’t telling her the jokes kids made of the clothes, coz mama work hard even for these shoes with holes…” he sings. The difficult life his mother and sister faced clearly reflects as he raps “Found her (his sister)one night playing dad’s phone message on repeat till it felt like a faulty broken record. She cried through the night wishing for a different kind of life, like the time we had before we moved to the States…but here we are, you and me kiddo as mom sobs in the next room. For things that we are…we’re still family” Talking about his experiences and song writing Malabar says it was easy using his writing and rap to portray the essentials to a song that needed to be written. “That was a difficult song to write. Mainly because there are so many layers to my immigrant experience and how it affected my entire family. I think we were all dealing with varying degrees of trauma once we settled into the US. In writing this song I found myself feeling an intense love for my family and all that we have gone through individually and collectively. I felt it necessary to write that song and perhaps offer a glimpse as recognition of my family’s struggle and journey in America. It is easier for me to communicate via my art. Writing/Rap has a way of trimming the fat and only the essential and most important parts remain,” he says. His inspiration to produce the album came from another album he worked on before Feral Child. Called The Beautiful, Rowdy Prisoners, the album was created as a result of the experiences the musician had working in juvenile detention camp and in South Los Angeles high schools for five years. After the daily workshops and retreats the artist would attend, he found himself turning something organic into a few songs and then a full blown album. He says the album began as an exercise to better understand himself and “circumstances that push entire communities towards the margins of society” The album begins with a narration from poet and author Teju Cole as the rest of the album narrates stories of the kids he’s worked with. “I was asking the young people I worked with to share their personal stories. To fully expect them to do their own work I had to model it and share my story as well. I can’t expect others to do the healing work and speak from an authentic place if I’m not doing it myself,” he says adding that the last album was cathartic for him in many ways but this latest release allowed him to own his story. Though Feral Child will be released in the US on January 6, 2015, Malabar will be debuting the album at the Goa Art And Literary Festival 2014 early next month. But does it finally give him the sense of self satisfaction in dedicating an album to his own experiences? Malabar says he certainly feels love for his younger self. “I felt that I had to carry that young self and speak about his experience of being ignored and stumbling along without a role model or road map. As I get older I’m always thinking about that young man and countless other men and women who are experiencing what I experienced as a young immigrant. Telling my own story is an invitation for others to tell their own story.” Though he currently lives in Los Angeles, America he says the immigrant experience is still very much alive. He still works with men and women who often live in the shadows of society, stories he says he connects to easily. Moving to a new place is never an easy task and it wasn’t for Malabar either. Born in Bombay and raised in Baroda, the then 12 year old moved to San Francisco, California where he began a new American life. But life was never easy. “Soon after my arrival, I enrolled at my zone's public school. The school sat in the heart of the city, and like most inner-city schools in America, it was battling an unrelenting triumvirate: violence, low-test scores and poverty. I was one of four South Asian students at the school and the only one amongst them placed in ESL (English Second Language) classes,” he wrote in an essay for Scroll.in. In addition to music that Malabar has been writing since his first album with his band The Himalayan Project since 2001, he is also in the middle of completing a novel. The novel, a coming of age story is about a boy named Lenin in Baroda. “It is set in Baroda where I grew up and takes place during the tail end of the ‘License Raj’. The novel explores the life of Lenin as he seeks to make sense of his community, his own fatherlessness, and all the cast, religious, and conflicts that surround him. I hope to have it published soon.”
