In the music video Duita Kukkur (Two Dogs), Nepali-Canadian rap duo Baba Ram Dave Co. are seen showboating through Kathmandu, singing Nepali lyrics that oscillate between the political and the nonsensical. The video opens with Baba Ram (Mark Harris) acting as a yoga instructor for a group of actual sadhus, mimicking the exercises of Indian yoga televangelist Ram Dev. Tashi Lama (aka Baba Dave) then introduces the band before the beat drops, and the scene cuts to the duo walking through Pashupatinath. Over the next three minutes, the video strings together a series of random shots of the duo rapping, dancing, and wandering around the graffiti’d perimeter of the Jawalakhel zoo. The video was filmed and edited by Vivek Katuwal and was developed as a promotional tool for the 2015 Nepal Music Festival, which would later be cancelled due to border closure and fuel crisis of last year. The audio for the track is unlike most hip-hop songs in that it was recorded organically using real instruments performed by Max O’Hara, Mark Howarth, and Lidia Facerias of the Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory. The lyrics are written by both David Tashi Lama and Mark Harris, with Harris contributing the guitar riff and lyrical hook “Duita kukur batho ma chha” (There are two dogs in the street), while the more nuanced verses were written almost completely by Lama. The meaning of the song is hard to follow, but David’s raps complain about the political situation in Nepal while demonstrating irreverence toward the status quo. Lines like “Some say long live, some say death to, but me, I don’t give a damn” contrast with Harris’ empty rhyme about living in Helambu, and eating lots of rice.

The cinematography and editing of the video demonstrates fine execution by Vivek Katuwal, but overall, the product falls flat because Baba Ram Dave are frankly unlikable characters. For a debut release, Mark Harris, 28, and David Lama, 32, appear tired and washed up—irrelevant from their very entrance into the music game. Considering hip-hop places an emphasis on being music for the youth by the youth, one has to question whether the duo is desperately clinging on to their youth, and who exactly they are trying to impress. The song, though catchy, is equally forgettable, save the obvious fact that a Caucasian immigrant raps in Nepali. Here, the identity of the artist has changed the context in which the song is understood. This has caused some people to accuse Harris of leveraging his privilege to create a kind of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay collaboration in which he exploits the talent and local knowledge of Lama to project himself to the peak of the Nepali rap game. This complaint though worth considering is perhaps unfair as it relies on race to minimise Harris’ honest interest in the sub-genre that is Nephop.

Still, what is worth noting about hip-hop in Nepal is that its success demonstrates the impact of the American culture machine on the impressionable youth of the country. In the case of Baba Ram Dave, however, their music takes influence from Nepali hip-hop in order to repackage it for consumption both in Nepal and the West. The result is two drastically different ways of interpreting the work, with each playing of the exoticism of the other. Watching a Canadian rap in Nepali, surrounded by sadhus is just as bizarre for Canadians as it for their Nepali counterparts, but for slightly different reasons. While the media used in this particular production of this work is audio and video, the actual material of the work is found in the way identities and cultural symbols interact with the audience. The art lies not in the object but in the experiencing and interpreting of it. What Harris and Lama, (both self described ‘Blatantists’), are doing in this project is not wholly music, but a particular approach to contemporary art originating in Harris’ hometown of Toronto, Canada. The practice is called Blatantism and is unique in that it creates art across media and disciplines, aimed at generating a buzz about itself, for the long term strategy of elevating the status of its participating artists. The purpose is to create work that is permeated with a high-Art concept, while remaining accessible to the uninitiated who might enjoy the music at a surface level.

Duita Kukkur follows this strategy closely and creates a narrative that confuses and provokes. The question here is whether Duita Kukkur is an earnest attempt at making music, or a small part of an elaborate performance piece? All that can be said at this point is that the ambiguity and the blurring of lines between honesty and parody are deliberate, which allows for diverse interpretations across cultures. Unfortunately the layers of interpretation fail to conceal the fact that Baba Ram Dave Co. makes bad music.