Steve 'Flash' JuonIf you search for the “Level Rapper” by traditional means you’ll find someone named “The Club Banga King.” Unfortunately that’s not a match for who we are looking for here. That’s a rapper named Level, not the Level Rapper. He’s also not rapping interchangeably in both Hindi and English, which is very much what the protagonist of “Level E Rebel” is doing on songs like “Rise of the Rhyme.” Even if you’re not paying super close attention the fact he says “suck my dick” over and over comes through in any language.
Unintentionally I wound up going down the wrong rabbit hole though, because instead of trying to figure out who Level Rapper was, I wound up wondering whether or not the Level from Baton Rouge was still alive. The last update I could find was months ago. If anybody could fill me in I’d really like to know. I’m hopeful things turned out alright for him but the lack of news is telling. Either way it eventually dawned on me I was going about this the wrong way and I checked Level Rapper’s “about” page on YouTube. I found the right emcee here, one with a small social media presence on multiple platforms, but more active on them than the Club Banga (praying for him).
“I’m too fucked up” – Level Rapper, “20”
I’ll be the first to admit I’m the wrong guy to judge whether or not a Hindi rapper is good. If it weren’t for the fact he switches back and forth between languages at will on “Level E Rebel” I would have left it to someone else altogether. “Wild Paradise” showed me that I didn’t need to. His come-ons to a lady whose affections he wants are undoubtedly the same in either one. “Let’s go to paradise … I love you, I love you, I can say it twice — twice.” It seems like India (or at least Northern India) has picked up on the cliches of emo rap from the United States and wholly adopted them.
These are the times rap frustrates me greatly. When I hear rappers from different parts of the world, I want to hear about their own culture and perspective. Even if a rapper from South Africa was rapping in English, I’d still want to hear what his/her/their life was like there, not their best imitation of a rapper from here. Even when he brings in his friend N Seen for the song “First n Final” I don’t know that either of them are doing anything that trying to sound like their American counterparts, though oddly enough I find N Seen the more compelling emcee.
If I can be blunt here there’s nothing about Level Rapper I can recommend. What you can decipher as a non-Hindi speaker is not enough to show any innovation or elevation of the art form, and I suspect (but can’t prove) this means the parts in Hindi aren’t doing much either. It’s also a bit disconcerting to hear him throw around casual misogyny in English. That is absolutely the part of cultural appropriation I would rather nobody from any part of the world appropriate from the United States. That’s not a valuable export. If you’re going to imitate American rap at least take from the best parts, not the worst — except I know the worst parts are far more popular. It is what it is and Level Rapper is on his own level I don’t want others to join him at.