''An Open Letter to Honey Singh'' is a 3.5-minute

rap Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

featuring Rene Sharanya Verma, a student of

St. Stephen's College, Delhi St. Stephen's College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi, widely regarded as one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges for arts and sciences in India. It was established in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi. The college ...

, performing at Café Zingo Star in

Greater Kailash-II Greater Kailash (often referred to as GK) is a residential area in South Delhi consisting of prime and luxurious real estate in several neighborhoods and multiple markets. It is divided into two zones, namely Parts 1 and 2, located around a se ...

organised by Delhi Poetry Slam, an initiative that aims to "restore the art of spoken word into the everyday culture of the Capital". She performed before a 30-person audience. The subject of the slam was "Portrait of a Lady". The rap number was composed in one hour at the cafe. The video has been uploaded to YouTube using the handle "Delhi Poetry Slam". The addressee referred to in the title is Indian artist

Yo Yo Honey Singh Hirdesh Singh (born 15 March 1983), known professionally as Yo Yo Honey Singh or simply Honey Singh, is an Indian music producer, rapper, singer, songwriter and an actor. He started out in 2003 as a session and recording artist, and became a b ...

. Besides challenging Singh, the video criticizes extant value systems in the media, advertising and the arts that demean women and treat women as

commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a comm ...

, instead of

persons A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...

Context

Honey Singh is an Indian rapper whose work has been perceived as being vulgar,

misogynist Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It is a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practiced fo ...

, promoting

violence against women Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), are violent acts primarily or exclusively committed against women or girls, usually by men or boys. Such violence is often consi ...

and a bad influence on youth. There have been reactions in prose to Singh, such as from Annie Zaidi, who wrote her own "An Open Letter to Honey Singh" in January 2013, and Sandipan Sharma, who wrote "Thanks for the crassness: An open letter to Honey Singh from a parent" in July 2014.

Review

In part, the work is a response to the perceived misogyny in Singh's work. Verma said in an interview that on initially hearing Singh's "

Blue Eyes Eye color is a polygene, polygenic phenotypic character determined by two distinct factors: the pigmentation of the eye's Iris (anatomy), iris and the frequency-dependence of the scattering of light by the Turbidity, turbid medium in the Stro ...

" it "hooked" her, but that when she "paid attention to the lyrics" she realized they were "very problematic". '' Femina'' said that Verma uses phrases in Singh's works to express her disgust, and appreciates that the message Verma wishes to convey that every woman is intrinsically good the way she is. The target is not only Singh but also eve teasers, who were the template for works such as Singh's. Although there have been other protests against Singh's work, including petitions and an open letter written by Annie Zaidi in ''

The Sunday Guardian ''The Sunday Guardian'' is an Indian Sunday newspaper, founded by journalist and politician M. J. Akbar, and currently owned by iTV Network. It was launched on 31 January 2010 from New Delhi and is printed in New Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh. ...

'', Verma's rap number uses the same artistic format as Singh and incorporates some of his own lyrics. Verma's work has been considered as an example of Indian women confronting adversities. Verma's work has been cited as an example of a

spoken word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...

performance being used as a revolutionary tool, and as parodying Singh while attacking the sexism in Singh's rap. Subsequently the video of another work of hers received over 180,000 hits on YouTube and was the subject of media attention, in which she was described as someone who had confronted Singh, and "slamming" and "knocking the wind out of" him. She was featured on ''The Arts Hour'' for the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

presented by

Nikki Bedi Nikhila Bedi (; '' née'' Moolgaoker; 9 September 1966) is a British television and radio presenter, born to an Indian father of Maharashtrian origin and an English mother. Married to Kabir Bedi from 1992 to 2005, she retained her married name ...

, with her rap number "Reclaim the night".

Social media

The video was uploaded to

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

on 28 January 2015. It went viral on social media and had received about a million hits on YouTube by 2 February 2015. As of August 10, 2015, the video had received over 1.6 million hits.

References

External links

An Open Letter to Honey Singh Video

{{DEFAULTSORT:Open Letter to Honey Singh Viral videos Yo Yo Honey Singh Indian music industry Sexism in India