As I was watching Paullytical’s album listen-along of Tadipaar. I went back through the memory lane and remembered how all these felt back 6 years ago. How I went from having doubts, to hardcore fan, to serial hater and then having no opinions on MC Stan.
I briefly remember the moment, the exact moment when I knew that he had something special within him. It was when Lowkey was released, the first single after the disses and all the heat and I had heard it on repeat at least 10 times at my sister’s house.
I felt this as absolute freshness different from what Divine or Emiway was doing at the time, as my hiphop was limited to just Mumbai at that time. Stan felt different and relatable to an extent. The music was new and there was a pinch of absurdness in both the music and lyrics.
From that time I was hooked to him and kept up with all the updates, as hype for Tadipaar started going up. Teases, tentative dates and snippets were showing up. It finally started rolling out on Sept 22 2020 with the release of Hosh Mai Aa.
The album rollout was rather weird, each song dropped one by one each month and the final Tadipaar video was dropped on 31st of December. I was not aware of how albums are released so I did not mind this. But in retrospect, this was a rather smart move to keep the whole scene talking about you for months and to make sure that each song and it’s video gets enough attention.
The videos were very important part of this Album being a hit. As song-streaming culture was not there yet in India and Youtube was the main source for music consumption. The nofiltr and MC Stan collaboration was iconic and I doubt if the visual experience would have been so good if it was not for nofiltr.
I would like to go through each track one by one, extremely personal and biased review of each.
1. Hosh Main Aa
To be honest, I was underwhelmed with this drop but gassed it anyway. Maybe I was listening for a banger start. I was waiting for the album for months after all. The skit in the beginning was absurd back then but it was so cool to watch. Somewhere in my 15 year old mind, this created curiosity and aspiration about MC Stan and his life. The reckless representation was very attention grabbing and attractive.
The song is fresh and a nice starter for the album. There is no narrative, it mostly talks about everyday things and random flexes. Hosh Main Aa inherently signals the listener to “get in the senses” but there is a very little going that way in the lyrics.
I do not find any quotables in this one and I would term this one as the weakest from the whole album. But overall it’s a good song.
2. Ek Din Pyaar
Ek Din Pyaar is as fresh as it was back in the day. And it comes with a narrative. This was the time when hating and punching down MC Stan was as common as breathing air. This track comes as an attempt to give back to the haters and partly explain his situation to them.
It starts with flex and complains about people showing up with hate to him and MC Stan is not getting affected by it. But he tries to end it on a good note, a few lines going over his mental state and encourages others to stop with this hate stuff. Ends it with a little “Pyaar kar”.
The most iconic part of this song is the hook itself, it explains how people go through cycles of love and hate with Stan and eventually end up using his name to get paid. The hook is iconic and trends from time to time on social media.
Although a little thing which I did not like in this one was Stan saying “Fans mere kattar, sir mein tere kaanch”. Back in the day it was cool to hear that, but it somewhere started the trend of weaponising the audience and also subtly promoting violence on behalf of him. This was not cool.
One thing about MC Stan songs are, when you try to find quotables which are lyrically attractive, they are hard to find, but when you start looking for parts or lines which are phonetically recognisable, repeatable, there are ample amount of these all across the discography.
3. 307
This is one absolute slapper. This level of trap was never before introduced in DHH. The production of the song is very intense and trap heavy. This song made a statement, this was the first step in installing the “gangster” or “hero” personality as Raftaar describes it, of MC Stan. We were seeing an artist who has gone through some rough times.
To be intellectual, a criminal or accused is not someone we like to idolise in this society but reality is often far from ideal. MC Stan made a statement with this one and the youth, the listeners hailed him for it. We had never heard “fuck the police” by any artist in India. We had never seen someone flexing the penal codes that they were taken under. He started rolling with that gangster persona after this one for sure.
In this song, he describes some criminal side of his life. How he was framed, how he was arrested, then interrogated by the police. How the treatment was inhumane and all this resulting to Stan’s hatred for the police. The music video ends with a crying baby which signals the helplessness and pain that MC Stan claims to have gone through.
Although a great song, but I don’t find any specific reason to put this in my playlist or revisit this a lot of times.
4. Numberkari
Numberkari, also meaning “Ride or Die Homie”, is the sequel blaming and suspecting his own friends who MC Stan suspects to have betrayed him. Although this was never said in the songs directly. But it goes with the story line.
MC Stan also talks about being lone, far from his mother and escaping from Pune because of dangers he faces there. This track goes into the complaints and grudges MC Stan has against a lot of different targets ranging from himself, the police, his friends and his haters.
Some lines from this track hit different.
“Dukh hota meko, India ka scene diya kiske haath mein”
“Bahar ki public Billion khaari, apli public Vimal khaari”
Again these are not some out of world hymns, but he says a lot in lesser words.
Numberkari is one of the finer tracks from the Album which feel fresh and bumpable even after 5 years. The sound is amazing.
5. Amin
Amin is one of the most beautiful tracks MC Stan has ever made, or in fact, those which were ever made in DHH. This is different from the whole album and MC Stan’s whole discography. This one hits a different side of your heart.
Amin is an attempt to go to the better side of the world with music. And MC Stan trying to preach to his audience. The track contains grief, regret and a will to better yourself. MC Stan talks to the listener directly with the lines “Fan mere rahenge toh aaj ke baad se, Maa baap ko maante apan aaj ke baad se”. This was inspirational back then. I took it to my heart. This MC Stan was surprising, although he had done it already with Astagfirullah, but the difference between it and this was that along with regret, Amin also contains a message and a will to be better.
Amin touches on the spiritual and conscious side of MC Stan. It tries to induce a sense of awareness in the mind of the listener. MC Stan ends it with “Mein khud upar waale ka pankha”
6. Tadipaar
Tadipaar, the myth, the legend. This was what I waited months and months for. And it was worth the wait, this level of story telling was never seen before in DHH ever and has hasn’t been topped yet.
This was a movie, and absolute movie. This made MC Stan a hero, for me and for countless others who prior to this, had doubts, had shame or had confusion on whether he has got it or not. But after the 8 minute track, there were no doubts. DHH had a new mainstream guy, a hero.
The song narrates the journey of MC Stan shifting from Pune to Mumbai. How he was exiled or made Tadipaar from his own city. His journey from struggles to excellence.
With flexes as usual. This one also tries to explain what MC Stan is, he screams through the other side, trying to make you familiar with the idea of MC Stan, and his life journey. He preaches in this one, he tells you his experiences and his struggles with his friends, his struggles with poverty, his newly found strength and respect. This one song shows you everything.
The video of Tadipaar is as crazy as the audio. It has so many sequences of stan performing the song, that you discover a new frame every time you revisit the song. This was ahead of it’s time. The visual story telling of the stabbing incident or MC Stan performing on the iconic roof. The video does not bore you at any point. This was made for people with short attention span XD.
Overall, Tadipaar is a gift to DHH. It has somewhere shaped the idea of Albums and story telling. Every single rapper in this country would want to have such an debut album which MC Stan had, this album cleared all the doubts of all the people.
MC Stan is not a lyrical miracle. He puts his thoughts in simple words with extraordinary flows and on the craziest beats. This along with the persona of a fearless and outspoken gangster rapper which he has created. He becomes unavoidable.