Siri Narayan is an Indian rapper and songwriter. She is known for rapping in multiple languages including Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, and English. She shot to fame after the release of the 2020 song “My Jam” produced by Sez On The Beat. It gained more than 1 million views in 2 years on YouTube.
Wiki/Biography
Siri was born in December 1992 (age 30 years; as of 2022) in Bengaluru. Siri is trained in Carnatic music. She studied at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Hyderabad. She developed an interest in rapping while studying at NIFT, Hyderabad. She began to rap in 2015 after listening to “Out of My Mind” by B.o.B featuring Nicki Minaj while. She started performing at college events and functions. She performed the song “Out of My Mind” at a college event, and the response from the audience after her first rap performance, motivated her to pursue a career in rapping and create her own music.
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 8″
Weight (approx.): 60 kg
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
Body Measurements (approx.): 32-28-34
Family
Siri was born and brought up in a Hindu family in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
Career
Rapper
Singles
In 2016, Siri released her first song, “ANYBODY,” in collaboration with Roe, on her YouTube channel. In 2018, she released the song titled “Live It” in collaboration with Har Man. In 2019, she came out with the song “Gold” featuring Sez On The Beat. In 2020, Siri released the song titled “YAARU” produced by AAKASH. In 2021, she wrote the song “SANTE” and performed it in its music video.
Poster of the song ‘Santè’
Films
In 2019, She rapped in the song “Beauty Queen” from the Kannada language film “Yaana.”
Collaborations
In 2017, Anup collaborated with Siri on the Kannada song “Male,” which means rain. In 2019, she worked on a project with DOSSMODE and created an anthem titled “RCB Anthem 646” for IPL’s (Indian Premier League) cricket team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). In 2019, SIRI and Sez On The Beat collaborated to create a track for multinational brand Nike’s “Project Nike.” In the same year, the Garliyapa YouTube channel and Whisper, which makes menstrual hygiene products, created a song titled “Tu Bas Naach” was released on the Garliyapa YouTube channel. Siri, VS42, Dee MC, and Kayva & Kriti collaborated together to create Garliyapa Power Anthem. The song was made to empower women and break the stereotypes that are imposed on women.
Poster of the song ‘Tu Bas Naach’
In 2020, Siri featured in the song “Move Like A Lady,” which was released to celebrate International Women’s Day. On 21 June 2021, Raja Kumari put out the song “Rani Cypher” on her YouTube Channel; the song featured SIRI alongside two other female rappers including Meba Ofilia, and Dee MC. In 2021, Siri featured in the song “Namma Stories- The South Anthem,” which was released on Netflix India’s YouTube Channel. She performed in this rap song with other South Indian hip-hop artists including NJ, Arivu, and Hanumankind; the song gained more than 7 million views on YouTube in one year.
Poster of the song ‘Namma Stories’
Awards
- Won Best Electronic- Jury Choice Award for “Tu Bas Naach” at the 6th Radio City India Freedom Awards 2019
- Won Best Indie Collaboration- Jury Choice Award for “Tu Bas Naach” at the 6th Radio City India Freedom Awards 2019
Favourites
- Rapper(s): Nicki Minaj, Missy Elliot, A Tribe called Quest (hip-hop group)
Facts/Trivia
- Siri Narayan goes by her stage name SIRI.
- She has an interest in fine arts and studied design in college.
- She can play the musical instrument Veena and uploaded a veena cover of the song “Starboy” by The Weeknd on her YouTube channel.
- Siri has performed on the stages such as Rider Mania, VH1 Supersonic, and Echoes of Earth.
- Siri is related to Budweiser’s Be A King campaign. In 2019, Budweiser released a song, “Be A King,” featuring DIVINE and SIRI.
- In 2016, Siri released the first episode of her series titled “Straight Off The Desk” in which she raps her own lyrics set to the music of the song “Work” by Rihanna. In 2017, she released the music video of her song “Soul” as the second episode of her series. In the third episode of the series, she rapped to the tune of the song “Gucci Gang” by Lil Pump.
- In an interview, on being asked about how her parents reacted to her getting into hip-hop and rapping, and whether they supported her or not, she replied,
My mom still doesn’t understand what I do, dad is pretty understanding now and very supportive. Initially, both of them never believed in me and that was very hard on me mentally. I’m glad things worked out great eventually. So I urge people to rebel out even against your parents because they will eventually understand, otherwise, both parents and yourself will be miserable for not pursuing what you want in life. The best thing is to move out and live alone. I did that, I live in the same city as my parents. Things were never easy but things WILL work out for everyone in due time.”
- Siri is a multilingual rapper. When she was asked about her creative process of a song and how she transitions from one language to another, she said,
When I’m mixing languages I make sure there is a smooth transition between them and both languages are well balanced. Each project is handled differently.”
- In an interview, while talking about the challenges she faced being a female rapper in India. She replied,
The challenges are the same as in any industry, which is populated mostly by men. Here, the audience is also mostly male, so I believe people don’t give you the same support that they show the men. But I guess I’m here to change that. Sexism is the same everywhere so I like to talk more about what I do and how I do things than my challenges because honestly, it’s tiring. I should probably save that for my songs as content.”
- In an interview, while giving advice to people who want to get into the hip-hop industry and become a rapper, she said,
My advice would be – don’t listen to advice because you know what is best for you. The internet will tell you if you suck or you’re good at rapping, so that’s that! But always have a few go-to people and mentors who you trust for advice. And make mistakes and fail hard, it’s not a bad thing!”