Mrithangam Raps: The Viral Series Rewriting What South Indian Music Sounds Like
A look inside the SVDP collaboration that turned a classical drum into a global hip-hop phenomenon.
Few independent series have travelled as far, as fast, as Mrithangam Raps. Built around the chemistry between Yanchan and Canadian-Tamil rapper SVDP, the project does one thing exceptionally well: it lets the mridangam and the MC genuinely converse.
The format is live and unfussy — Yanchan on the drum, SVDP on the mic, the camera close enough to catch the hands. That intimacy is what made it spread. Viewers who'd never heard a note of Carnatic music found themselves rewinding to watch the rhythm land.
“People think fusion means watering things down. We wanted to do the opposite — make both sides hit harder.”
With individual entries clearing hundreds of thousands of views, the series has become the clearest expression of Yanchan's thesis: that South Indian classical percussion belongs in the same sentence as trap, drill and R&B — not as an experiment, but as a home.
Originally featured in Homegrown
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