What do you think you might have done when you were four or five years old? Played with toys or mastered some rhymes perhaps? Yashica Raj is way ahead of the game. This six-year-old has already rapped four songs in Kannada, including What NXT, Oh My God and Student Anthem. And she's only just whetting her yen for more rap music. At four, Yashica rapped her first song, Oh My God. Now, that's unbelievable!
Taking it back to the beginning, Mohan Babu, Yashica's father recalls, "When Yashica was born, I was working in the United Kingdom and I returned to India only after a few months. She hadn't seen me at all and it was a different moment for both of us to connect with each other. After my return, my wife, Swathi, and I started hunting for some unique names for our child. When we found it, we wanted to do something different other than a naming ceremony to announce her name. So, we approached SID, MC Bijju and Martin Yo, young Kannada rappers, to write a rap about it."
He continues, "We believe that there is no better gift than education, especially for a girl. Hence, the rap song Namakarana that was written by Martin Yo and performed by the trio, is a message to parents to save money for their children's future instead of spending it lavishly on events like birthday parties and naming ceremonies. When we released it on our YouTube channel Yashica Raj, the song earned a lot of positive responses." That is the first time little Yashica made her appearance on a rap number.
Last year, she officially launched her very first song, Oh My God. "What was challenging for Yashica was memorising the lyrics because she couldn't really read. But she did it and her camera presence was extraordinary. Oh My God has been listened to in over 240 countries and has got a lot of views on social media. After a few months, we launched her next song, What NXT. The track comprises lyrics in nine languages with a primary narrative in Kannada. She has rapped in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. The concept of the song is that Yashica meets an alien and she teaches the alien these languages," explains Mohan.
Mohan credits young rappers like MC Bijju, SID and Martin Yo who write the lyrics for Yashica's songs and who have been mentoring her in many ways. He says, "Yashica's next song is Game On, which is all about encouraging people to play football, especially children. For this, Yashica herself has been training in football for the past two months so that she can understand what the sport is all about and how it is played. We want her to rap the lyrics with the perfect emotions that one has for football."
