MUMBAI: Lending voice to a new generation of creators, global sportswear brand Puma has pioneered the largest movement in the country’s street culture with its latest collaboration campaign – Suede Gully.
A brainchild of Puma and DDB Mudra, this collaboration portrays the street culture of India, giving a single, creative stage for self-expression to a talented breed of artists, musicians and dancers. Raw and compelling, Suede Gully comes alive in a video that captures the essence of Indian streets in the most authentic manner. The collaboration also gives the iconic Puma Suede, which has been a cultural street and hip-hop symbol for decades, a fresh and local perspective.
India has a very strong and unique Gully (street) culture, which has evolved over the years, but it retains its rawness. Our streets carry, shape and communicate opinions and over time, have grown to become a mode of self-expression for many. DDB Mudra recognized this resilient underground street culture bubbling under the surface and decided to amp it up and brings it to light. Thus was born Suede Gully.
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Puma’s Suede Gully is the outcome of India’s street-style to bring urban culture to life with a joint effort of eight rappers, thirty-six dancers, seven artists and countless creators with the director Sneha Khanwalkar and production Phenom.
Voice of the streets Vivian Fernandez aka Divine said, “It’s about the entire thing happening around hip-hop in our country. It is about coming together and telling the people that we have hip-hop in our country. Hip-hop is at a stage where it is just going upward.”
The video features thirty-six dancers, dancer Mukti Mohan and four dance crews- Higher Vision, Unity One, Beast Mode and Black Ice. The video covers four corners of the country- Mumbai, Madurai, Shillong and Delhi. There are eight rappers- Divine, Khasi Bloodz, Prabh Deep and Madurai Souljour. The fascinating thing about the collaboration is that all of them have presented hip-hip in their own language.
The video is also a creative effort put by a pool of talented street artists. It includes seven street artists- Shilo, Anpu, The Indian Artists, Baadal Nanjundaswamy, Zake and more.
Suede Gully also shows the four elements of hip-hop. It displays graffiti, breakdance, DJing and rap or emceeing. With the four elements coming together this makes it number one in hip-hop space in the country.
About the present hip-hop scene in the country, Vivian said, “Hip-hop is at a phase where it’s coming from all the parts of the country. It is strong and will only grow upwards.”
Recently Vivian came with Raja Kumar at Abish Mathew’s comedy show. Sharing his conversation on the show Vivian said, “Abish has been listening to me for a while since I released Suede Gully. He always likes my music including my recent track City Slums with Sony Music featuring Raja Kumari. Since there were a lot of things happening around hip-hop he invited us to his show. It was a good experience.”
The duo Divine and Raja Kumari came together for City Slums under the label Sony Music. Speaking about his teaming up with California based Indian rapper Raja Kumari, he said, “Hip-hop there (California) is not as it is in India. Raja coming from such a place makes it more interesting. What inspires me is that she is a female hip-hop artiste. I always wanted more women hip-hop talents to come out because it’s necessary. They have so much to say in real life when it comes to hip-hop. Maybe they think there is much pressure and no ideal to pursue a career in hip-hop. But, we have come to a phase where it’s happening. People like me are turning their passion into a profession. It’s a good time where people can take what they want to take irrespective of any field.”
The rapper is all excited about his upcoming performance line-up. He will headline at Breezer Vivid Shuffle with Abish Mathew, Kenny Sebastian and Varun Dhawan on 11 November. He is also gearing up for happiest festival NH7 Weekender, Pune which is not too far. Soon he will be releasing his solo single which will out before Weekender.
Watch Suede Gully here:
