Hello..

this is ishQ Bector..

thank you for getting in touch and letting me know how you feel..

i apologise for the emotional stress that you’ve been through because of my latest music video..

i want you to know that i have, and will always have the utmost respect for the Indian family structure which men and women keep intact through genuine love.. women are devis that should be worshipped at the highest level for all that encompasses them.. mind, body, soul & heart..

my private feelings aside.. when i write a song, i always stay true to the concept to the best of my ability.. and as an artist, i believe in exploring all that is in our world.. good, bad, ugly.. whatever..

in the case of “Aye Hip-Hopper”.. the concept was that of a bai’s love for her boss (who happens to be a star hip-hopper).. now pls understand that this is a make believe situation created purely to entertain audiences.. my team and I tried to produce a light comedy drama while being as true to the characters as possible.. nothing more.. nothing less..

chances are that through out my career, you will hear songs displaying concepts & issues that you can really appreciate.. and others that are not to your personal liking.. but i can not let anyone else’s sensibilities rule my art.. coz at the end of the day.. its my life work!!

plus, do you really want to live in a world where arts & entertainment are further censored just to suit everyone’s personal preference? i don’t!!

my job is to release entertaining music.. you as a listener can chose to love me or hate me.. listen or flip the channel..

i will always remember your words and am very thankful that you took time out to connect with me..

hopefully, the next time you write to me will be because i’ve entertained you for a brief moment with my positive vibe..

your Indian brother,
ishQ

but why are we taking the ” right to have a crush” from her just coz shes a maid…. !! if you work for a super star, i.e spend so much time seeing him around, u will! i think its like a girl having a crush on a teacher r a boss!

Thank you for accepting my feedback. I appreciate your efforts of going through my criticism and I hope you took it in a positive way.

I guess I was too rude in my previous mail.

I appreciate your efforts about working on concepts. As you would notice in my previous mail, I did mention that I liked your “dakku daddy” concept. Now that was something really interesting. And being a true entertainment(music+movies) fan, even I am full of concepts which I find interesting. But when you work on your concept, you’ve got to look at it from different perspectives, given such a diverse Indian audience.

I was upset with only this one concept of “Aye Hip-hoper” in particular because of the way you projected it. I hope you understand my point. I could explain it to you. Now I understand that the basic concept here was about the feelings between a star and his bai. Thats fine. It could have been projected in any of the following ways and it would have made it interesting and not derogatory in any way :

1.You could have shown the star to be loved and adored by everyone in the world, except his bai. So the star would grow restless while trying to figure out why the bai is not attracted to him. And this could have been presented in a humorous way.

2. An alternate ending to your original concept itself (bai falls for the star) is that you could have ended the video by showing that the star finally falls for the bai, but the bai has given up on him and is completely over him and the star realises his mistake.

3. Yet another ending to your original concept is the star falls for the bai at the end, but then turns out the bai wasnt a bai after all, she was a conwoman who pretended to be his bai, tricked him into loving her and at the end fled with his money or probably stole all his yet-to-be-released tunes and songs, and sold them off to his rival in the business.

So you see… there are so many other ways you could have made it more interesting, funny and not derogatory. Also, you could probably try to keep the lyrics a bit more subtle.

I hope my stance is now clear enough.

I appreciate ishq’s gesture of posting my mail on his blog and replying to it. I agree with him on the fact that it is his life and he can chose to portray his ideas through his work of art and music. At the same time, I urge ishq to be a li’l more sensitive in the future. The concept of hip-hop music is kinda new to Indian audience, mainly because it didn’t originate in our country. So, though the beats and the music feels good to listen, Indian hip-hop artists should make an effort to make the audience understand the concept of hip-hop before plunging into coarse concepts.

Again I appreciate your efforts and wish you all the best in your career.

Thank you for hearing me out.

Respect.

sincerely,
An Indian.

As a believer of female empowerment (and a lover of men - specifically one!) ..I can understand how people would find this vid to be egotistical, degrading with little thought to the actual introduction to the basics of the hip hop culture..However!! it is light..highly entertaining as it is a story and something that has been catered to specifically the Indian culture because of the class structure presented. If you think about watching a movie and get upset or happy..its because the character has played their role in true form..perhaps that’s what is happening here..you either love ishQ coz he’s hot n sexy, can dance..etc or you hate him because he is demeaning this bhai and projecting a character that no matter how good he is to look at..will have you think twice of his persona..his beliefs and values. but like any actor..is this their true self? rarely.
I see both sides of the coin because I believe in freedom of expression..while valuing the need to empower and entertain our youth positively..

signed..a libra

I personally think that the song was only playful and IshQ did not mean to make it hurtful. It was not really against any Bai at all … it was only about a Bai who has a crush on her famous Boss …
what is so bad about that??
And yeah it is unreal so it does not excatly matter.

Thanks,
Pre

agree with u yaar

hey ishq,
i heard u on th radio today…
just have to say… good going… i think i have myself a little crush on u…..

love sarika

Mr. Ishq Bector,

I hope this email finds you well. We are both writing to you from Barnard
College, a Liberal Arts Women’s College at Columbia University. We are
writing to you in regards to your music, more specifically your recent
hit, “Aye Hip Hopper.”

Not only do we believe that this song is extremely degrading and
disrespectful towards women, however we also find it shameful that you
seem to promote these backward values. Your statements are uneducated and
absolutely wrong. As a public figure you should understand that you
influence young minds, and what you say does in fact have an impact on
society. We truly believe that you don’t really endorse ideas such as
“scrub it girl.” We appreciate the fact that your music is in the hip-hop
genre, however, we hope that you would want to bring this art back to its
true form.

There is a lot of progress to be made in regards to women’s rights in
India, and in the world, and music which promotes ideals such as those
that are in your music hinders this progression. We hope you don’t really
believe women are objects whose sole purpose is to feed you your naashta,
clean your house, wash you and sleep with you. You have a mother, maybe a
sister, and thus by disrespecting women you disrespect them. We are
writing to you because you still have the potential to change your music,
and we hope you take these words with serious consideration.

Best of Luck with your future endeavors.

Shireen and Payal

whatever!!!

these tight-ass haters wouldn’t even be here if ishQ’s songs weren’t so popular. he’s a hit maker who is giving indian music a new vibe! so let him do his job. rock on ishQ! we love and support you bro!

To Shireen and Payal

I would like to say that I respect your views about the song … but i have to remind you … IT IS ONLY A SONG!!
There is no need for anyone to take is SO seriously and get offended. I’m sure it is not IshQ’s purpose to offend anyone … so why are you implying that his song is ‘disrespectful towards women’ ?? His songs are popular with many people and we like them because they are different to other songs. If you really care about what people think about women, then you shoud do something about the amount of crime against women in the country, the discrimintation everywhere in the country and how OTHER factors are the reason that some people do not respect women. Aye Hip Hopper is only a song and there is nothing specifically against women in it !!
I hope you see what i mean.

We love your music IshQ, keep it up.

Pre

Hi.
This song sucks, but thats the garbage thats spewing out of the music industry these days anyway.
Definitely heard some Dead Prez’s “It’s bigger than hip-hop” influence in your song.
I guess its what hiphop/pop culture in general has come down to anyway- women are being objectified in music videos and treated as nothing but eye candies.
But it sells!

aye yeah hip hopper…men u r howtt..I LOVE YU>>\m/

how the hell is it degrading? have u even consulted more women before cming to conclusion yourself? i think its a mutual thing between the star and the bai, hehe! but i think ppl worried about women are going the wrong way, thrs a lot more to achieve probably ion the streets than here!

The posts on this blog is interesting…….diverse, I must say!

lolz cant believe pple found it offencesive gawd pple cool it… its just a frinking song… which i love……..amazing..tuneee… aye hip hopper.. dukku daddy a bit diapointing but it was good love the theme to it… u got a nice voice.. and love ur tracks… hope to hear from u soon
p.s u got killer moves and ur sexc/hot
lots of love
Nuree..
Mwahz
xxxxx

We’re all creatures alike, Humans who dislike, some ask why, becuz we dun try, Life is a test, Fulfill it at your best, cuz once its too late, then ur really gonna hate!. HH

its anum here…i love ur song…dunno why hes getting tight abt it…and to not a fan- ISHQ BECTORS MUSIC IS NOT GARBAGE
buh bye my love keep on doin your thang- even if people r gonna b losers abt it =] mwah

Also, if I was his bai..i would definetely have a crush on him..and it would be MAJOR..his lucky girlfriend =]

A month back a friend drew my attention to a music video by Canadian (of Indian origin) hip-hop artist Ishq Bector (his website here). Titled Aye Hip Hopper. the music video tells the tale of an Indian bai (housemaid) in love with this hip-hop artist. This demure bai dressed in a western maid outfit even falls in love and wants him to return her affections. The hip-hopper, as he is addressed by the bai only offers baksheesh in return for her affections and asks her to fut, fut, fut (a Hindi slang for being dismissive). Apparently the music video has caused some furore amongst middle class Indians who find it offensive and sexist. While not denying those charges, I would like to offer a different reading of this and in the process try to bring in some references on the different modes popular culture imagines maids. For a response to Aye Hip Hopper would be vacuous without references to other forms of popular addresses.

A cursory glance at various representations of the maid shows the different ways we imagine the bai but the most striking one, which also is the oft-repeated one, is the one of the exploitable. This is a very boring point since there is nothing new about it) but the example points to the way capital can find ways to fetishise ordinary objects around us and circulate them for consumption. In this case, we buy the music and watch the television channels that play the music videos and feature his interviews. The question really is why does it appeal to us? In this case, we have an NRI who is imagining India through the musical practices of hip-hop, which brings with it a certain construction of women in both lyrics as well as music videos Of course, we have to ask the difficult question. If this is a returning-NRI who claims to be one with the roots of Indian popular culture we could ask what is the extent to which he is gazing at the native culture through a patronising and imerialising white culture? Does this music video eroticise the native woman?

For example, his own virility is heightened and raised by the virile native girl’s desire for him. Step back into the past and you find abundant images of the eroticisation of the native body In Ishq Becto’s video, the bai is given agency and is not an object to be merely looked at. She desires Ishq Bector and is hysterical about the same, though in a more subdued form. On the other hand, she is elevated to a new kind of exploitation by transferring her body into a more desirable and gaze friendly attire. So the ordinary bai, engaged in a class struggle also becomes a sexual commodity.

So, is Ishq Bector the returning imperialising gaze? A different kind of representation of the bai can be found in Indian films. Here we see the female from the gaze of the subject thereby leading to interpellation of our own symbolic relations with the subject (the threatening male) and the object (the threatened female). This construction of the bai is from a sensibility that views women as vulnerable and the male gaze as threatening, here we have crude (but not inauthentic) representations of the male (a villain) whose sexual drives leads him to gaze (illicitly) at the female body. Here the subject (the villain) is able to gaze because the baiis weak and vulnerable and cannot challenge the act.

In the case of Aye Hip Hopper, it raises a further problematic because it also allows us to imagine the bai outside of the class struggle. Here the female articulates her desire and requests the male subject to return her affections in kind! She asks him to mop the floor of her love house! Of course, such a construction is not without problematic resolutions.

check out this article with videos at this site:
http://subalternstudies.com/?p=313

i think if Bachan can play the role of a man in love with a 19 year old, and Bollywood has been for YEARS making dough on concepts such as prostitution, and love conflicts due to class differences and romanticizes it..ishQ is running with his own concept in his own unique way of these very concepts of unacceptable love..true though isn’t it? these are taboos that are being presented to the forefront..why is it acceptable for dancing prostitutes but so much venom towards an employer who disses his maid? Bollywood as an industry prides itself on item girlz dressed like skanks in vids, movies, shows, etc. where it becomes embarrassing to watch almost anything entertainment related as a family. Who’s the real culprit? think about it.

i have 2 say, dis song rocks, its entrtainin n made me LOL
honest, i personally think ishQ did a wickd job, u da bst bbez!!
i also like dakku daddy, fuckin funi, honest!!!
btw, im a gal, i dn’t think ishq was bein disrespectful towards women. its juz entertainin his fanz, which he did wonderz 4 me!!
mwhz xxxxx
xxx 4L15H4 xxx

Hay ISHQ

me aap se dosti karna chahti hoon mujhe please jald se
jald jvab do mujhe aap se bohat baten karni h

App ki Best Friand

KARISHMA K.C.