Artists harness hip-hop to tell climate stories in India

This photograph taken on October 1, 2026 shows rapper Kali (C), aka Akshay addressing the gathering during the launch of the Indian multi-lingual rap album on climate crisis 'Climate Emergency Mixtape' at The Humming Tree in Bengaluru. Indian rapper Kali needed little inspiration to write about dwindling water supplies -- he drew on childhood memories of hauling plastic pots full of the precious resource. Kali's song "Neer Kodu" -- "Give Water" in the Kannada language -- is one of six tracks on the "Climate Emergency Mixtape", billed by its organisers as India's first multilingual rap album about the climate crisis. — AFP pic

First Published: Wednesday, 21 Oct 2026 7:00 AM MYT

BENGALURU, Oct 21 — Indian rapper Kali needed little inspiration to write about dwindling water supplies — he drew on childhood memories of hauling plastic pots full of the precious resource.

Kali’s Neer Kodu — “Give Water” in the Kannada language — is one of six tracks on the “Climate Emergency Mixtape”, billed by its organisers as India’s first multilingual rap album about the climate crisis.

The 29-year-old, whose real name is Akshay, grew up in Bengaluru and has been making music for more than a decade, citing Eminem and Akon as influences.

As a child, Kali walked for around 10 minutes to fill pots with water from a public tap.

“We would always think… we should not waste this,” he told AFP during the album launch this month.

Water shortages are a chronic problem in Bengaluru, India’s tech hub, where many residents rely on groundwater wells that often run dry in summer.

Others depend on expensive water trucked in from elsewhere.

Climate change threatens to worsen water stress as temperatures rise and weather patterns shift.

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‘Powerful medium’ 

India, the world’s most populous country and third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, is vulnerable to extreme weather.

While some areas have faced drought, others have suffered deadly floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain.

Brikesh Singh from Asar Social Impact Advisors, which is one of the collaborators on the album, said music helped express the challenge faced.

“If we want to reach out to people who are experiencing the climate crisis, we need to change how society tells those stories,” Singh said.

“Music, we felt, is an extremely powerful medium.”

Rapper Abisha also drew on experience for Veppa Marathadiyila — “Under the Neem Tree” in Tamil — a song about climate change’s impact on marginalised communities.

The 26-year-old, a member of Tamil Nadu’s first all-women rap group, Sollisai Sistahs, remembers water “reaching her doorstep” when she was around eight.

Two years later, she said, the area had run dry.

Abisha said climate change was still “not spoken about widely” in her community.

So she hopes her song will reach people more powerfully than spoken words alone to help spread greater understanding of the threat.

Kali urged more artists to move beyond subjects such as cars and bikes, which he called “boring”.

“They should talk about something that actually matters — which is climate change,” he said. — AFP