How Taran Kaur Dhillon became Hard Kaur?

British-Indian rapper, Hard Kaur, is not happy with the male rappers who she thinks are dissing girls and treating them like sex objects in their songs, claims a report on Hindustantimes.com. The 35-year-old says that it was she who had created space for rappers and hip-hop artistes in the Hindi film industry. The report quotes Hard Kaur as saying that she is the one who has opened doors for rappers like Honey Singh, Raftaar and Badshah in Bollywood and that she has been doing it for 20 years now.

In a chat with Timesofindia.com, Hard Kaur revealed a lot about her personal and professional life. Read on to know more...

Taran Kaur Dhillon is the first female Indian rapper and is better known as Hard Kaur. She is tough, free-spirited and on top of that, she is extremely talented. Hard Kaur has come a long way in her musical career since she rose to fame with ‘Move your body’ from Johnny Gaddar. The sight of an Indian girl dancing her heart out and doing a rap was never seen before and came as a surprise for everyone. But before one could realise, Indian music lovers had embraced this Punjabi girl. In a conversation with Timesofindia.com, Hard Kaur spoke at length about her new song, ‘Ranjha,’ the rap scene in India, and much more. She even expressed her views on Deepika Padukone’s My Choice video that created ripples across the world. Read the seventh slide to know her take...

For her new song, 'Ranjha,’ Hard Kaur has collaborated with Punjabi pop-singer, Deep Money. The rapper has collaborated with musicians like Jazzy B, Anirudh Ravichander, Aman Trikha, Mahalakshmi Iyer, Jasbir Jassi and many others in the past. About her collaboration with Deep Money, she reveals that Deep has a hunger for good music. She reveals that Deep was very sweet to her while approaching her for the song and had said, “Main taan tuhadi bohot respect karda aan” (I respect you a lot). The rapper agreed to do the song in no time and the video for the same was shot in Delhi.

On being asked as to why luxury cars are mentioned in Punjabi songs every now and then, the rapper laughs and quickly replies saying, “Punjabiyon ka kaam kya hota hai aur!” (What else are Punjabis for?). She tells us that Hip Hop music was like poetry during the ‘70s and was used as a weapon to voice opinions in those times. About the evolution of the genre, she says that while rap is an exciting medium to convey thoughts in a fun manner, these days it is only used to talk about cars and girlfriends.

Ask her how Taran Kaur Dhillon became Hard Kaur and she reveals the complete story. The rapper reveals that she was a simple girl with pigtails when her family shifted to the UK. NRIs in UK as well as the British citizens were very rude to them and would call her ‘freshie.’ She got into a fight with some white guys and had to compete with them in a spontaneous rap competition. Not only did she defeat the guys at their game, she also earned the tag of being 'Hard.' She later adopted the tag as her stage name.

Being the only noted female Indian rapper, Hard Kaur barely has any competition but that doesn't mean that she takes it easy. Ask her about her favourite contemporary rapper and she quips, "Yo Yo Honey Singh - he is an entertainer and has his own style." But she finds it annoying when other rappers ape Honey Singh. Hard also confesses her love for Canadian Sikh rap artist, Fateh, who she feels is one of the few original rap artists.

About her musical journey so far, Hard Kaur says that she feels lucky to have received so much love from the listeners. She says she is in a happy space today. Talking about her struggling days, she reminisces that she didn’t have to struggle much after ‘Ik glassy do…’ became a hit.

About her views on Deepika Padukone’s My Choice video, Hard Kaur says, “It is a nice video which spreads awareness about women’s rights. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want.” Come to the controversial part of the video where Deepika talks about ‘having sex outside marriage,’ and the rapper reasons, “It has been happening for ages now. It is just that people have now started talking about it openly.”