There’s a rule inside the Money Verse Records (MVR) camp, and it has nothing to do with streams, charts or going viral. Before any track is released, every member of the Malayalam rap and hip-hop collective has to be able to listen to it on repeat, 10 times straight, without reaching for the skip button.
Simple? Sure. Easy? Ask the 16 versions it took to finish “Nera”.
“We feel we’ll get trapped if we make songs only to go viral,” says ARJN (born Arjun Sunil), the 25-year-old Thrissur native and creative anchor of MVR. “If we chase numbers, it’ll put a lot of pressure on us, and we’ll overthink everything to the point where we stop putting out music.”
That kind of thinking sounds either very zen or very naive — until one takes a look at their numbers.
Their song “Kalyani” was all over Instagram at the beginning of this year, climbing into the top 25 of the Spotify Global Viral Chart. Their fanbase — who call themselves the MVR Mafia — have pushed tracks like “Nera”, “Sheriya” and “Kalyani” past the 10 million mark on YouTube, without the backing of expensive music videos or extensive marketing. Just music.
Old School Ties
MVR is, at its core, a story about old friendships. ARJN and Suhas (Suhas Moideen) go back to the days to shared rides to “tuition class”, bonding over similar playlists before either of them had a sound of their own.
Other members KDS (Kiras Das) and Fifty4 (Vishnu V) are, in ARJN’s words, “basically born together”. Producer RONN — 21-year-old Ron Vinod — helmed the production on both “Sheriya” and “Kalyani” while the latter’s music came from ARJN, KDS, and Fifty4, with lyrics by Suhas and Fifty4.
Growing up in Kerala, there was no local rap scene to look up to. ARJN idolised the music of Canadian superstar Drake and wanted to create music like he did. “But of all the Indian music we would listen to, it was Punjabi rap that showed us the way. We were all really into Guru Randhawa when he had started to pop. Sidhu Moosewala was a major inspiration too,” he says.
Finding Malayalam
The pivot that changed everything happened after ARJN moved to Canada to study further. The collective had started writing in English, but something wasn’t landing. “Here I was a Mallu, born and raised in Kerala, and somehow that identity was missing in our music,” he says. “It took us some time, but it all fell into place once we started writing our lines in Malayalam.” The connection was immediate.
But language was only one piece of the puzzle. The bigger move was sonic: fusing West Coast beats with traditional Malayali rhythmic elements — the chenda, a cylindrical percussion instrument, and the ilathalam, a thick bronze cymbal — to create something that felt both local and global, and a sound that complemented both folk and rap.
The Long Game
“Nera” which was released on YouTube over 10 months ago was their first track to find a global audience. It has now clocked upwards of 10 million views so far. “The final track we put out was the 16th or 17th version. By the time we had put out “Nera”, we had already been producing music for more than five years and it was our 20th track,” says ARJN.
With “Sheriya”, released two months later, they doubled down on production, spending more time, more money, more attention to mastering, and a more deliberate approach to music videos. It paid off; “Sheriya” clocked almost twice as many views as “Nera”.
The tone and texture of their music shifted around this time, too. The darker themes that featured in their earlier work gave way to something that was more motivational. This change, ARJN says, came naturally. Inspiration, he insists, can come from anywhere. “While driving, sleeping or even while I take a shower.”
MVR Mafia Forever
Currently mid-way through a multi-city concert tour in Australia, ARJN says the moments that move him most aren’t the chart positions. It’s the fans who show up asking for songs that were made well before “Nera”, “Sheriya” or “Kalyani” put MVR on the map.
“Some of them have been listening to us from even before, even before the fame. Some of them are born and raised abroad and so they know very little Malayalam… but when they get all our lines right, word-for-word,” he says, “I tear up.”
As for what comes next, ARJN isn’t looking sideways for cues. “I really love and respect Hanumankind’s grind and what he’s done with Indian hip-hop. For us, the idea is to make Malayalam go global. It’s a different novel that we’re trying to write.”
He grins. “I like to look at myself as something of a time traveller. I’m just waiting for all you guys to catch up.”