Hanumankind at The Academy on Monday, 14th July 2025.

How much effort does it take to make things look effortless and smooth? You may have observed it in elite athletes. In people with captivating oratorical skills. In artists and performers who show up on stage and do things to draw you in, do things that feel near hypnotic as you experience a transfer of energy. The performer gives it their all. You are compelled to reciprocate in kind. That’s how it felt when I got to watch Hanumankind live at a sold out gig at The Academy on Monday.

Hip-hop is big in India. Well, to be fair, any subculture is big in India because it is one sixth the world’s population. Indian hip-hop as a genre exists on a sliding scale between two extremes. On the one side, there’s all the swagger and bravado associated with guns, gangs, gold and girls. Rappers like Yo Yo Honey Singh and Badshah often come to mind. On the other, there are stories of how people uplift themselves out of challenging circumstances by the concentrated power of will and shine a light that allows others to see the road better. These are the likes of Naezy and Divine, who grew up poor and wrote their way out into a better life.

Hanumankind flits between both ends, but not in a way that gives the listener whiplash. It only makes him more fascinating as an artist and as a performer. Hanumankind a.k.a Sooraj Cherukat was born in India, in the state of Kerala. A state many reading this might be familiar with as a tourist destination, especially if you feel Goa is too mainstream to visit and you still want to feed your need to experience lush tropical weather and hang out by the beach.

As a kid Sooraj moved around a lot because his father’s job took him all over the Middle East and eventually to the US in Houston. He returned to India to study, worked briefly in a corporate job and also as a personal trainer. When in Houston, Sooraj was exposed to hip-hop in the US, which influenced him in a big way. His journey as an artist has taken him many places and his resume is impressive. He brought intense energy to his performance at Coachella earlier this year, bringing Indian origin hip-hop onto the mainstream in a big way. He has been featured on the soundtrack of Squid Games and partnered with A$AP Rocky for one of his chart-topping singles.

At the Academy, he showed us all how the accolades and recognition he has received were justified. From the moment he set foot on stage with his opening track Damnson, he showed swagger. His lyrics reminded us of the kind of self-love, confidence and devil-may-care energy that Kanye shows through his choice of words in his 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Plenty of folks in the audience were from Kerala, where the local language is Malayalam. Hanumankind played to the gallery with style, switching between English and Malayalam as a way of talking to the crowd and connecting with them. We were hanging onto every word he said, whether it was during his songs or in between, when he was bantering.

You know someone has the crowd when they can say – “This is a new track, you don’t know the lyrics yet, but imma teach you and we can all rap along together. I want to feel your energy.” Then he played the call and response game and by the time the track was through, he had us all jumping to bring the house down.

The ease with which he was able to work in appreciation for everyone showed how many reps he must have put in to refine his stage craft. He had good things to say about the people he worked with. He shared how people in Ireland made him feel at home, and as someone who moved here from India eight years ago, I wholeheartedly concur.

His songs also had themes that didn’t speak to me. I find that stories that focus on oneupmanship and glorification of power and status no longer resonate with who I am today. Experiencing art, after all, is intensely subjective. However, as a wordsmith and as a charming, powerful performer, Hanumankind was an absolute delight.

The crowd kept asking for “Run it up” and “Big Dawgs”, the two tracks that made him go beyond being a South Indian hip-hop artist to a globally renowned hip-hop artist who just incidentally happened to be from South India.

“We went from nothin’ to something Got all of ’em jumpin’ to shit that we made from the air We went from running and gunning with nothing in stomach To feeding the neighbourhood, bruh”

That’s the hip-hop story. Start with nothing. Turn it into something. Something that travels across space and time. That elevates people. Allows us all to leave our distractions and our life’s worries at the door as we all crowded around in The Academy, jostling for space as Hanumankind had us moshing, moving in waves from left to right and jumping up and down in sync with him.

It felt like a workout of the best kind. A 21st century tribal ritual augmented by technology, great acoustics and brilliant lighting. One that allowed us to lose ourselves in the moment and to groove to the beats and words of a man who decided to pick up a pen and go from nothing to something and have us all jumping with our hands in the air.