We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kanagaraja Anoj. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kanagaraja below.
Kanagaraja, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
when i was ten years old i really got interested in writing poems, so from that age i keep on writing different types of poems and stories at a point i got involved in listening to rap songs which gave me an idea of rapping what i write , at that time i was only 12 years old, so i wrote my own view of imaginations, things which i see from my own eyes about society, learning the way how i should find rhymes to rap in a proper way, reading more, watching and concentrating on movements of people and the world, watching others who can rap , when its come to music that’s how i learn to do what i do. in the other hand I’m a farmer by profession this is how i make money for living i does farming full time ,my father is a farmer from my small days i used to go with him to the farm from him i learnt lot of things about farming actually he thought me and it came to me by experience.
to speed up my learning process in music i could have done it full time but unfortunately i couldn’t do it because i wanna make money doing farming and i wanna travel to a different city if i wanna do music where there are so much opportunity.
but its fine I’m doing both parallelly
for rapping i need to be in a better stage in knowledge, i rap in Tamil language so i have to learn more and more about the language, and the way of writing makes everything different so i have to be different from anyone else, and the vocal power the way i should deliver the rap , the rhymes have to be really meaningful these are the most essential skills should be i think
when i talk about obstacle , finding time for music still i have a job doing farming, making money doing music in my country is kind of a hard thing, lack of opportunity’s like getting shows, any work regarding music
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
my real name is Kanagarajah Anoj my stage name goes like Oj Da Tamil Rapper, i been rapping for last fourteen years, I’m now 34 years old, by profession im a full time farmer thats how i make money for living i live in the city called NUWARAELIYA in the beautiful country called SRILANKA, i rap in TAMIL language
when i was eleven we had a culture in our school everyone listen to rap songs they had crews they make beats everyone raps we used to have stage shows in our school ,i studied in s’ thomas college banadarawella , that’s where the idea was seeded in my mind so looking at the culture i stepped in to rap, started writing, started rapping from the small age
so far i have done so many mixtapes which is there in all social media platforms , i worked with local artists done some originals with them, and i have done some tv commercials as well,
being a farmer i provide quite good service to the people , i make food to the table
i write about social problems , what people want end of the day , problem solving i write for peoples right, so it helps the followers well. i always stand with people to provide art which can help them
i want to deliver meaningful art to the people, which can change them and which can provide knowledge.to them
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
recording studios are much expensive for recording, all this years i have recorded in different studios , and i learnt so many things, about sounds mixing and mastering the final products, i always think to have a studio with high technology where we can make sound to the world standards , and provide the studio to the musicians who can try it and make use of it for a reasonable price and spread the music to the world with good quality standards.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
in my view ,the society should understand the artists , why they really doing music, as a artist i find lot of local talents independent artists who are really excellent in what they are doing, for an example im not a commercial artist im straight from under ground i speak about people and there rights , most of my works are about issues , poverty, women rights, social , everything i write about for a better future, so society should understand the value of these kind of artists, here society knows the power of art, i want them to give more power that’s all
creative is the future i believe
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oj_da_tamil_rapper/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ojdatamilrapperofficial/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ojdatamilrapper
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2meyhFDSfzGbo6WZFH5cOA
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0tphHIjvOj8Xkc8Q7WH27C https://music.apple.com/lk/artist/oj-da-tamil-rapper/1536248215