A battleground for Mumbai's rappers in Khar

Aditya Tiwari aka McKode, one of the two finalists of this year's Rap Wars Delhi Prelims

It is time that aspiring rappers from the city brush up their lines and performance. An opportunity to showcase their talent at a national level is here.

Aditya Tiwari aka McKode, one of the two finalists of this year's Rap Wars Delhi Prelims

This time, Oasis, the cultural festival of BITS Pilani, which is India's second largest event, and goes on for 96 hours continuously, has expanded their reach; the college will hold the prelims of their rap event, Rap Wars, in Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai.

One of the participants of Rap Wars Delhi prelims

The event was started by the 2012 batch of Poetry Club of the college. Since then, Rap Wars has grown in popularity nationwide and has hosted performers like Vivian Divine, Xstacy Sash, Brodha V and Smokey previously.

The organisers of Rap Wars 4 during OASIS 2014

Mayank Goel, a core member of the organising team says, "While scaling up, we had to look for the cities which had the best Hip-Hop scene in the country. Here we owe a lot to our friends in the Hip Hop community, especially Ipsha Barooah from Siliguri who actually helped a lot with building the initial database," he says.

On their way to the expansion, they found a lot of support and guidance. "We had a detailed discussion with Prayag and Hotfix from Pune Hip Hop Renaissance which helped us decide the path Rap Wars would take this year. Also, each city had a few solid supporters, namely Aditya Tiwari aka McKode from Delhi, Rounak Chakroborty aka Cizzy from Kolkata, Akulu Sashank aka Extasy Sash from Bangalore and Vineet Nair aka Poetik Justis from Mumbai," he says.

This year's Rap Wars prelims held in Bangalore

The Mumbai chapter, he admits, would be the most exciting one with its vast range and fresh voices in Rap. "Drawing a parallel, today, Mumbai is the New York of Hip-Hop culture in India. It has brought out so many great artistes that at one point, we were telling ourselves that the finals would see the majority of the artistes coming from Mumbai. Some of the popular crews I would like to mention here are Elsewhere, Mumbai's Finest, Gully Gang, Allegionz, Swadesi and Beast Mode Crew and Bombay Bassment

Various initiatives like Battle Bars Bombay, the Dharavi Project and The Hip Hop Movement all have built a massive respect for the battlers from Mumbai. As such, opening a chapter here was not a matter of choice but a necessity," he explains, and adds, "Of the four prelims, we are expecting the best prelims in Mumbai," he says.

He says that over the past few years' rappers from Mumbai have performed at the Oasis to cheer and acclaim. "We have seen a good showmanship by Mumbai participants. Emf, Kav E (the winner of an earlier edition of Rap Wars), Mayavi are few of the participants that had come down to Pilani earlier," he recounts.

At the Mumbai prelims at Tuning Fork, they are expecting a participation of over twenty rappers. They will be judged by experienced rappers Shaikhspeare, D'evil and Enkore, who have a number of record albums to boast about. The event will be hosted by the Swadesi Crew.