There is something happening on the Indian rap scene. In the last year or so, four strong new voices have emerged from different parts of the country-Kashmir, Delhi, Calcutta and Punjab. And they rap in different languages (not surprising, given India's multilingualism): English (MC Kash), Hindi (DJ Faadu), Bangla (G**** Circus) and Punjabi (Yo Yo Honey Singh).

None of these rappers know each other, nor are there rap festivals (like with Indian rock and electronica) where they can meet each other and share notes. What unites them is the fact that they are using rap as a weapon to deal with local realities.

Rap isn't a homogenous entity. It's not surprising that each of them draws inspiration from different traditions of rap. MC Kash is in the activist mould, much like The Last Poets (in content, not in style). In 1970s America, The Last Poets railed against the oppression of blacks; Kash talks about the plight of Kashmiris in contemporary times. DJ Faadu draws from a personal-confessional tradition, much like Eminem. Calcutta's G**** Circus has a wider lyrical arc, but the words are essentially about resisting the mainstream. Honey Singh is strongly influenced by present-day gangsta rap.

Range

Rap is perhaps the most direct musical genre, and these rappers are masters at saying it like it is. They don't hold back. They don't dance around issues. And like all rappers, they are not afraid to use cuss words to make their point.

The most striking feature of these rappers is that they are self-taught. They have grown up in India (except Honey who has a Canadian connection), and learnt the craft by listening to their heroes. Unlike Eminem who learnt to rap on the porches of Detroit houses and trailer parks, and honed his skills in freestyle competitions, these guys evolved in a vacuum, but have emerged surprisingly fully formed.

Some days back I saw G**** Circus live at Out of the Box in Hauz Khas Village. The energy was unmistakeable; even though the lyrics were in Bangla, a sense of urgency got through. There was palpable anger in the air, though suffused with laughter and cheerfulness. G**** Circus are the kings of paradox.

Later, I asked Neel (guitars) about what they sang about. He told me that the songs emerged from the cult film 'G****', about a loser. Q, who directed the film, is also the front man of the band, which has played gigs in London, Cologne, Berlin and Brussels, as well as cities in Poland and Romania. In Calcutta, their hometown, they've done just two live shows. In bhodro Calcutta, says Neel, the audience is intimidated by the lyrics. It's simply too close for comfort.

G**** Circus rap about the little man who has been ignored by the system. This little man could be anyone: a rickshaw puller, a small businessman, a singer. The recurrent theme is about the hostility of the mainstream to the underground, a hostility which stems from insecurity. G**** Circus strikes back on behalf of all losers: "Like a ghost/ I'll climb on your shoulders and dance/ If you're the big fat balloon/ I'm the safety pin who'll burst your bubble."

The Delhi-based DJ Faadu sings about college life. But this is not the college life of Bollywood where happy boys and girls go on picnics and play antakshari in the bus. This is a real engineering college. There are few girls. Sexual frustration is rife in this community of nerd men: "In actual class mein ladkiyon kin kam ratio se main sick hoon/Ladke hi ladke bonus me hain sare ladke teacher/ Female teacher bhi hai ****/ B tech me char saal tak bhramchari banke padhte hain/ Isiliye to jyada engineer gay banke sadte hain."

Porn offers a solution but till a point: "Life me newspaper nahi padha but matrimonial padhta hoo/Maxim, Playboy, even Kamasutra bhi subscribe ki hai/ It's humiliating par Sarita, Grahshobha bhi try ki hai." This rings so true. It's well-known that in engineering colleges boys brag not about how many women they've been with, but how many gigabytes of porn they have on their hard drives. The IITs have been trying to ban porn for many years but with little success. Faadu's tracks reveal the dark flipside of our engineering success story: the perversions, and lonely and bleak inner lives: "Internet pe girlfriend ban gayi she asked me to come home/ As I started upon she had p--- of her own/ Socha fir jab aa gaya to kuch to karke jaoon, yeah... I lost my virginity but other way round."

Kashmir

If G**** Circus raps about the battle between the little man and the mainstream in abstract terms, MC Kash is very specific and concrete. His lyrics deal with the tensions between the hapless Kashmiri and the Indian state. He makes it clear that he has little to do with contemporary American rappers: "Everyday hustle, hell I ain't no Jay Z." He draws from an older tradition of American rap, which was about blacks resisting white oppression: "They can't stop an idea/ When our minds are free." His heart bleeds for Kashmir, a state he's never travelled out of: "They gave us blood and hate/ Then wondered why every man is a rebel." In an interview to the BBC he spoke about a comic but scary moment when Indian authorities raided his studio. They thought separatists were funding him. He is just an angry young man in his early twenties, rapping in English about the atrocity he sees around him: "We're taking back the throne/ With my fist held high/ And holding a stone."

Yo Yo Honey Singh, the final rapper in this little survey, is mainstream. He now charges 70 lakhs for doing a Bollywood song. But like the others he has an underground side. People like Kash and Faadu are invisible and don't do shows. Honey plays live from Toronto to Dehradun.

Underground

He doesn't perform his underground stuff but it's a huge success on the net. He borrows heavily from gangsta rap - the fast cars, the sharp suits, the branded sports gear, the sexual aggro/machismo. The content though is hardcore desi Punjabi: the 'pind' replacing the 'hood', 'purja' replacing 'hoe', and so on. His songs are brutally explicit about sex.

Of course, none of this stuff will ever make it to the television or the radio. Even though this is a revolution that will never be televised, the thousands of hits that these underground rappers garner on YouTube, and on their Reverbnation pages, shows that they have a massive audience.

For years, the Indian underground was dominated by rock bands. They are technically very sound, and often use foreign professionals during production, which gives their albums a slick feel. But one was always left with the feeling that most had little to say. The new rappers, with their rough-and-ready recordings, have changed this. Not only do they have a lot to say, and about a range of subjects, they have also successfully put rebellion back into Indian music.

As for those who find some of the lyrics misogynistic, well, it's really part of the genre. In fact, it's not so much misogyny as playful sexual aggression. I don't think the day is far when Indian girls will enter the rap game. This has been happening in America for quite some time. In an Ice Cube song, when the man brags that hip hop "is a man's world", the female rapper retorts: "What you're saying I don't consider it as rapping/ Cause you're on rewind and I'm the new what's-happening."