The improbable fame of a hijab-wearing teen rapper from a poor neighborhood in Mumbai

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/04/16/ [login to see] /the-improbable-fame-of-a-hijab-wearing-teen-rapper-from-a-poor-neighborhood-in-m
It is two hours to a high profile rap performance in front of thousands of people at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Saniya Mistri Qayammuddin – aka Saniya MQ – is waiting for her father to pick her up in his motorized auto rickshaw, a compact 3-wheel vehicle that he uses to ferry customers throughout the day. He is her designated chauffeur everytime she performs.

"I go in an auto even to the fanciest of places," she says. Saniya needs to be in the venue at least an hour in advance to do sound and music checks. "If my father has a customer in his auto already, he has to drop them off wherever they say first," she says, checking the time on her plastic wristwatch.

On this spring Sunday, the auditorium is teeming with people from the posh neighborhoods of central Mumba, who'll hear the 16-year-old rap about inequality. One of the headliners, she is dressed in orange slacks, a shimmering silk tunic called a kurta that covers her knees and a white and orange headscarf. She does not step out without her headscarf or hijab. She is Muslim and notes, "It is not that I am very religious, but I am out in the world to create my own identity, and now people recognize me as the girl in the hijab who raps."