India’s first hip-hop academy in Hyderabad

The King of Rap, Baba Sehgal launched India’s first hip-hop dance academy in the city, which was another reason for Hyderabad to celebrate its cosmopolitan culture.

The city witnessed the launch of India’s first dance academy by none other than Baba Sehgal, titled ‘Baba Sehgal Academy of Hip-Hop’ at Madhapur.

So why did Baba choose our city? “Hyderabad is the city that is very close to my heart, it has given me a chance to start a new innings of my life with the dream of practicing and nurturing hip-hop culture and spread it among people,” said the King of Rap. The grand launch took place in the presence of Bollywood and Tollywood celebs at The Park Hotel, Somajiguda. The evening was graced by popular Bollywood villain Ranjeet. There were also performances by Abhishek Awasthi, Kushal Punjabi and Baba Sehgal himself.

The dance academy is the brain child of Ramesh Bandaru, Sreedhar Bandaru and Baba himself which they planned to start 10 years ago. But there were a lot of hiccups which delayed the execution of their plan. “Since my brother and I were not from the entertainment industry, it was a risky decision. But Baba’s conviction towards hip-hop culture was the driving force for us to turn our dream into reality,” said Ramesh.

The academy, which is going to be the platform for enhancing the hip-hop culture, emphasises on four major components of hip-hop: rapping, locking-popping (as part of dance), graffiti (as part of painting) amd Dj-ing. Though people tend to relate dancing and Dj-ing with youngsters, the place is open for all age groups. As Baba said, “The essence of this culture is to respect each other. So, I would like to ask all youngsters to learn the art of respect. If you respect people, you will be respected by people.” His words were justified as the audience experienced both Kuchipudi and hip-hop dance forms on the same stage, as a sign of appreciating Indian and western culture.

While audience grooved to Baba’s hit song ‘Thanda Thanda Paani’, which released way back in 1992 and became the first and biggest selling album in India, Chiranjeevi’s song ‘Hello Chiru’s’ audio launch sung and composed by Baba, happened on the same day!