Meet Dee MC, The Indian Musician Making Waves In The Hip-Hop World

Standing tall and proud in the cast of the 2019 biggie Gully Boy, was a young woman rapping about how every woman should remember she is good enough for herself, she is all she needs, and that sisterhood matters. Ranveer Singh, Siddhant Chaturvedi and a whole host of male rappers may have dominated that scene, but the sole female voice stood out and showed that Indian women too have arrived in hip-hop music. That’s how most of the world beyond the Indian hip-hop underground scene first came across Deepa Unnikrishnan, the artist who goes by the stage name of Dee MC.

While most people barely remember Dee MC beyond that one scene in Gully Boy, she is going from strength to strength, ensuring that the voice of women artists and musicians stays relevant. Dee MC, who started her career in hip-hop with a cover song in 2011, had realized early on in life that a career in a non-creative field was not for her. Introduced to the Mumbai underground hip-hop scene by a friend, she started writing her own songs in 2012 and has been sustaining herself solely as a hip-hop artist since 2017.

Apart from touring the world highlighting the presence of Indian women in hip-hop, she launched her first album, Dee=MC2, in 2019. In 2021, she collaborated with fellow Indian women rappers Raja Kumari, Meba Ofilia and Siri Narayan, to create one of the most inspiring rap cyphers by women. Called the Rani Cypher, the number highlights how every woman in the hip-hop scene is different, has a different story, and are yet united by the fact that they have ambitions, and mustn’t ever forget that they are all queens.

During our conversation with her, Dee MC revealed that there are certainly more such collaborations between women musicians that are in the works. She is also working on one such project, where she hopes to unite all the female musicians and artists she knows under one banner of sisterhood. She also shed light on the Indian hip-hop scene, the innate sexism every woman is fighting in every field including music, and had some hard truths and critical advice for women and girls hoping to make a mark in the hip-hop world. For more, watch the full interview.