Creating awareness through desi rhythm and poetry

Rahul Kumar Velpula popularly known as Roll Rida has garnered one million views in no time on YouTube for his latest song ‘Raadhu’, which has a social message about drink and drive. The artist, who was a housemate in the season 2 of ‘Bigg Boss Telugu’, while in the house was unaware that his song ‘Arupu’, which was about growing issues of women in the country, became a massive hit. The song garnered accolades for its lyrics and it helped in changing the perception of men towards women.

“When I made ‘Arupu’ I was praying that it should become a hit as it had hard-hitting lyrics and had a social message. My aim was that it should reach every woman, however, the song garnered traction among men and I was happy that because I realised that my main objective was that it should reach everyone, and every man should respect women. And I am glad that happened because of my song.”

“I had tears in my eyes while rapping for ‘Arupu’ because I know how women feel when they are harassed because I have a sister too. When I was in ‘Bigg Boss’ I got a call from a fan and he told me that ‘Arupu’ was amazing and all the celebs were also appreciating me for the same. This song took me to a next level,” he adds.

Rahul, who is popular for churning massy numbers with desi beats, says that he and Kamran want to spread the social message with their rhythm and poetry and they came up with ‘Raadhu’, to create awareness about the dangers of drink and drive.

“Kamran and I wanted to do a song on drink and drive because I witnessed an incident in 2016 where two youngsters met with a fatal accident on New Year’s Eve as they were drunk, and it affected me very much. To make the song more effective we were trying to get in touch with Nitish, who went viral on social media for his drunk banter ‘Raadhu’ with a cop. It was very difficult to track him. 

He was being trolled everywhere we did not know his real name and we were searching for him every social media platform and finally, we found a page where he was tagged. However, he was not using his real name so there was a possibility that it could not be him. So, we dropped a message and within an hour he responded and when we shared the details of the song, he was excited to be part of the project,” Rahul added.

Regarding the expectations of the mass, audience singer says, “The audience always expect a massy number from us. I have been doing that since the start of my career. ‘Arupu’ was something different and so the audience also got the unexpected out of me. We use a massy beat for our songs as it grabs instant attention and people do listen to lyrics and I think that is a better way to spread awareness among people from all walks of life.”  

About his stage name ‘Roll Rida’ he says, “It’s a funny incident actually when I was thinking of a stage name I came up with names like ‘Rapper Rahul’, ‘Lil Roll’, etc. And my friends suggested ‘50 Paisa’ as I have 50 friends and the list was never-ending. However, I really like American rapper Flo Rida and so I decided to take his last name. One day while I was in the shower the name Roll Rida struck my mind and later when I shared it with my friends everybody liked and from then on, I was christened Roll Rida. As they say, all the best ideas come when you are in the shower (laughs).”

About his future projects, he says, “I am working on an album and it will consist of 10 songs and it will be released soon.”