Hanumankind pulled up to Genius to break down his hit single “Big Dawgs.” Produced by Kalmi, the infectious track has racked up millions of impressions on TikTok. On today’s episode of Verified, the Indian rapper talks about the meaning behind his name, the artists who influenced the global hit, having pride in his roots, and more!
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00:00The name is Hanumankind.
00:01I've seen people butchering the name online, and that's okay.
00:04It definitely comes off as humankind when you read it in the beginning.
00:08It's an amalgamation.
00:09It's a bringing it together of two worlds.
00:11Hanuman is an important figure within my culture and within my society.
00:16Mankind is the rest of the world.
00:18So we just brought the world together.
00:26Big Dawgs was fun, man.
00:28It came from a very honest place.
00:30My boy, Call Me, shout out to my boy, Call Me, who was the producer behind this,
00:33made me a beat.
00:34The energy was amazing.
00:36The power that it brought within me and out of him was just a beautiful thing to feel.
00:41The music video was just a coming together of people that care and wanted to push themselves.
00:48We just sat and came up with the idea of, you know, there's a skirt and a whip.
00:51You can do the traditional skirt a whip, have some bad bitches on the side,
00:54throw some money around.
00:56We were just like, hey man, if you're skirting a whip, why not do it inside the well of death?
01:13For those who don't know, UGK was a very, very prominent and integral part of Houston
01:20music and just culture in general.
01:22Pimp C and Bum B, what they did for the city of Houston and what they did just generally
01:27in terms of stylistics and aesthetics, it cannot be recreated.
01:31It is second to none.
01:32It's Pimp C's line.
01:33Top notch hoes get the most, not the less, right?
01:36Pimp C was just ahead of his time, man.
01:38He believed in bringing the community together.
01:40He believed in putting aside all your petty beef.
01:43Focus on getting your money up.
01:44Focus on providing for yourself and your community and your family.
01:47Rest in peace to Pimp C.
01:49I think what he did and what he left behind is monumental.
01:53December 4th, 2007 will forever be a dark day in history.
02:02I come from a country that unfortunately has a lot of stereotypes and typecasts that have
02:07been placed within our communities.
02:09I don't believe that these are what define us, right?
02:13There's so much more to where I'm from.
02:16There's so much of tradition.
02:17There's so much of style.
02:18There's so much of beauty from where I'm from.
02:20That's how you push culture, though.
02:21You show them what the truth is.
02:23You show them what is reality.
02:25There's a side of this world that you have never seen and never experienced, and that
02:29is something that I would love to show you.
02:36Project Pat is a pioneer.
02:37The style and the delivery that this man has brought to the world, you can hear it in so
02:44much of music that you hear nowadays.
02:46What he and Three 6 Mafia did in terms of their sound and stylistics and in terms of
02:50so many things, there was a time period where they were on top of the world and I was there
02:54for it.
02:54Big shout out to Project Pat for changing the world like this, man.
02:57For bringing this to music.
03:09So, rolling through the city with the big dogs is basically, I'm proud to be able to
03:13say that I did this with my boys from the ground up.
03:15We will continue doing it with my boys.
03:17These are my big dogs.
03:18This is the circle that you choose to keep.
03:20That's kind of what big dogs symbolizes, right?
03:23I'm rolling through the city with the big dogs.
03:24Fuck the laws.
03:25We made our own rules.
03:26We made our own scenarios and we created our own future.
03:40The long hair is actually a very new thing.
03:43Before all this, I had a very, very clean fade that I carried with pride and dignity.
03:48I had a great barber.
03:49Shout out to my boy, Ashik Bai.
03:51If people are around you that don't deserve a cut, you gotta cut them off.
03:55Just like my barber, make sure that I stay clean.
03:57Make sure that you cut out things that you don't need in your life, people or energies
04:01that you don't need in your life because these things will hamper your progress.
04:14Throughout my journey and throughout a lot of my friends, we have lost a lot of good
04:17people along the way.
04:18A lot of what we do and how we do it is keeping their memories in mind.
04:23When you move, you must remember that maintaining the integrity, not just for yourself, but
04:28the people that were there and were rooting for you is very important.
04:31So it's in your memories that we carry on.
04:33When I die, they will not bury me, not what I want.
04:35Within my country and within my community, cremation is a very important part of my life.
04:41Within my community, cremation is a very consistent and real thing that we do.
04:45After passing, we burn the bodies in a funeral pyre.
04:49After the body is burnt, we pour the remnants, the ashes into the holy river, which basically
04:55symbolizes the moving on from this life to the next.
04:59The body is a vessel, but the soul will continue to move on.
05:03Reincarnation is a very real tradition and belief that we have over here.
05:07After this life, you move on to the next one.
05:09And I think that this process of cremation is to symbolize that.
05:12The remnants are placed into the river where it will flow on and continue into the cycle
05:17of life.
05:26It is a brief glimpse of immortality.
05:28If you are true to your craft or your beliefs and what you pursue in this life, even when
05:34you are gone, a part of you will remain.
05:38They ask me how you be like this, how you get like this, why you worried about it ho,
05:43get up on my dick, get up out the way, what you think this is, we ain't worried about
05:48it ho, watch me skirt the whip.
05:50People are way too focused on how other people are doing their things.
05:53How people are getting their money, how people are pursuing their endeavors, how people are
05:58just going about their business.
05:59I feel like people need to relax on that and take care of your own thing.
06:03Get your money up.
06:04Provide for your family.
06:05Focus on what's important.
06:06Get up on my dick.
06:19Whether it's here where I live or whether it's across the world, a lot of people due
06:25to the way that they are perceived through their skin tone or their background, automatically
06:31assumptions are made, doors are closed, opportunities have been ended.
06:35I have experienced it.
06:36Many of my people have experienced it.
06:38Many of your people have experienced it.
06:40However, that doesn't stop us from getting what we're supposed to be getting.
06:43I'm proud of my heritage.
06:44I'm proud of my people.
06:45I'm proud of where I'm from, where our skin color is like the bourbon, right?
06:49But even within our community, there's layers to this.
06:52People are subjugated to a certain way of life and certain treatment by society at large
06:58that is unfair or that has negative implications on how we can move forward as a society.
07:16This is a worldwide phenomenon.
07:19There are so many consistent instances of the people being promised this and that.
07:25The people being assured that these things are going to happen by people that are in
07:29positions of power, people that should be helping.
07:31But unfortunately, a lot of these promises are broken and the general population are
07:35the ones that have to suffer because of that.
07:37So because of that, me and everybody else here, we're finding ways to cope, man.
07:41And sometimes to ease the pain within my heart, I need a break, a back or two.
07:56These things don't change.
07:57It's a cycle.
07:58There are figures and authority figures that are constantly suppressing your movement.
08:02So we fight that, man.
08:04It doesn't change.
08:15With the forces that are against you, they're going to try and budge you.
08:18They're going to try and push you left to right.
08:20But it is up to you to maintain the stability, maintain focus on what is important to you.
08:26And I bet you that they won't change me.
08:29It is my duty to stay to what I'm supposed to do.
08:32And if you doubt that, you can call my bookie.
08:34I can put you in touch with a good guy or two.
08:35And my bookie's taking bets because profits as a profit when you know what's coming next.
08:39This is just you betting on yourself, man.
08:41Make sure that if you believe in what it is that you do, rest assured good things will
08:46come to you.
08:47But you must believe.
08:50The Well of Death is actually, I don't think it's actually an Indian event.
08:54Historically, it's been all around the world.
08:56But it is something that you see all across India because it is a very common carnival
09:01or circus act.
09:02They set up in an area for a month or two.
09:05You can see that because the structures are usually fucking very rickety.
09:09It's just to be able to make it quickly and then break it apart quickly and take it out.
09:13So when it comes to being in the car and the Well of Death and actually performing this,
09:1810 out of 10 in terms of an experience.
09:20But if I had to get inside the car again, I would need some time to prepare myself and
09:25get ready because it's not a joke.