NATIONAL DAY SPECIAL 2018: Rapping his love for Singapore, one song at a time

SINGAPORE — Since breaking into the local rap scene in May this year, 26-year-old Subhas Nair hopes to show how much he loves the Republic — one song at a time.

Instead of heading to a corporate job like most of his Yale-NUS College peers when the inaugural cohort graduated in May last year, the urban studies major decided to be a full-time rapper.

"I couldn't sit behind an office desk and maintain my sanity. Frankly, I think I would not make it," he told TODAY.

His family and friends have been either unfazed or unsurprised by his unconventional career option.

"My family is used to living from pay cheque to pay cheque," said Mr Subhas. "As long as bills got paid there were no questions asked."

Mr Subhas' father had walked out of his family when he was a child, and the young Subhas found himself having to grow up faster than he would have liked. Turning to rap as a source of inspiration, he looked up to artists such as 50 Cent and Nelly while growing up.

So rap was the medium he chose to express himself, with everything he has been through counting as "lived experience" to fuel his creations.

To pay for his home recording equipment, the former national youth basketball player worked as a basketball coach as well as research assistant at Yale-NUS. In his spare time, he started writing his songs.

"I'll write as catharsis, imagine that I'm someone else and just write. Some words might come up that I can use in my own raps," he said. "Words are what keep my mother, sister and I going sometimes. It's just that faith and belief in each other, and that's (communicated) through words."

REINVENTING THE LOCAL RAP SCENE

Mr Subhas finds the local rap scene "superficial" and "appropriated", often featuring "overused and mundane themes … devoid of our cultural experience here in Singapore".

"Rap has always been the platform for the voices of the minority to share their own experiences," he said, and he wants his rap to do just that.

Instead of paying homage to the rich and famous, Mr Subhas sticks close to the ground, rapping about Tiger Balm and teh-C, the karang guni man and physical fitness tests.

"Documenting all the sights and smells and sounds (of Singapore) is as much haunting to me as it is from a place of fondness and tenderness," he said.

So after spending four months cataloging his experiences at the start of this year, in May, he produced his debut rap album, Not A Public Assembly.

In the eight-track collection, released on major online music platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, he examined raw images of everyday life in Singapore along with notions of what it means to be Singaporean.

In the single Heartlands, he asserts: "Home is in the heartlands where the heart lands". Yet, instead of patronising "makciks selling snacks sweating through their tudungs", it is "overpriced udon" that Singaporeans are lapping up.

In another single called Red Dot, he asks tough questions such as "sometimes I wonder where the marginalised sleep", getting listeners to question: is our picture perfect city state really as it seems?

In the interest of his artistic freedom, Mr Subhas did not submit his song lyrics to the Infocomm Media Development Authority's for approval. "This is music that should not be censored, or be submitted to a governing board," he said.

But that meant he did not have a licence to hold public shows. He had to turn the planned April launch of his debut album at the Substation into a private show, where participants had to RSVP on Facebook.

The event, attended by family and friends, ironically became the antithesis of a "public assembly". Still, he said: "There's no point making everyone happy with my music."

Having a different "barometer for success", Mr Subhas believed that as long as he stayed true to himself, that his album would be a success.

Shrugging his shoulders when asked if he is an activist, the 26-year-old said: "I rap because I want to express my own reality ... (But) when I see injustice, when I see something that one needs to speak up on, I will speak up on it."

Drawing his inspiration from the minority, people in Singapore whom he believes have been marginalised, he said: "When I graduated, I just really did not want to make rich people richer; that's not the point, I didn't go to college for that."

"I feel like so many people get left on the sidelines, marginalised by system, a system where greatness lies within certain tiers of success that is defined by the state."

Acknowledging that he has the privilege of being well-educated as a university graduate, he is not afraid to include literary references in his lyrics from the likes of Frantz Fanon and Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.

Mr Subhas said: "I want to democratise what I've received. I have that privilege, and have to take what I learned and share it. I do this through my music."

HOPING TO MAKE IT BIG WITHOUT LEAVING

Although his rap cross-examines and criticises life in contemporary Singapore, he says he has great love for the Republic.

"It's easy to listen to (my music) and say wow, this guy doesn't like Singapore, or it's easy to listen to a National Day song and say, wow this is a great picture of Singapore," he said. "But I think it's important that we as listeners and consumers be more conscious about the way we engage (and) to complicate the idea of what it means to love"

In fact, unlike most local singers who venture to bigger markets like China or Taiwan to find fame and glory, Mr Subhas has no plans to move out of these shores.

"I think where you're from never leaves you," he said. "My music may be my visa to bigger and better things everywhere, but I'm always going to be a Singaporean rapper, like it or not.

"(My rap) comes from a place of incredible love for my home, and I don't want to one day not have my children in Singapore because I don't feel like this is the best place for them to thrive."

Still, for all his self assurance and verve, Subhas admitted to TODAY that the path he chose has not been an easy one. "If you look in my bank account, it'll tell a very different story," he said.

To fund his passion, he takes on various part-time jobs, and uses his free time writing or practising rap.

While he has dreams of making it big and becoming an international success, he was firm that he would not do so at the expense of producing good art.

"If being a rapper means you hold a mike, spit some bars, get paid and go home, then don't call me a rapper," he said. "For me, rap is just the medium that I want to change the world."

His advice to up and coming artists deciding to tread this path?

"If something haunts you enough to keep you awake, then what you should do is you should work until you're exhausted enough to sleep, and wake up inspired to do the same thing the next day," he said. "Be brave enough to try and fail and ask for help when you can't fight your battles anymore."

At this point, he smiled — wryly — to himself. "Do you know how amazing it is to be a musician?," he said, barely able to contain himself.

"I can have a dream tonight; and then next morning turn my dream into a song, even a full EP of dreams if I like."

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