Biography

Adhi was born on 20 February 1990 as Adhithya Ramachandran Venkatapathy, while Jeeva was born on 29 June 1991 as Jeeva K.R.S. Adhi was born into a middle-class family with no knowledge in music or cinema; his father works at Bharathiar University while his mother comes from an agricultural background. Adhi came to know of rap music through Michael Jackson's "Jam". His interest in hip hop music started developing when he was in the tenth grade. He would upload rap songs to the internet and got positive response from people expressing interest in listening to more of his music; this encouraged him to start rapping in Tamil, also because he was more comfortable with it. Adhi named his account on the video-sharing site YouTube as "Hiphop Tamizha" with an image of the Tamil poetSubramania Bharati, to avoid being caught by his parents. Adhi's father had initially opposed his idea of choosing music as his career; Adhi himself had no formal education in music. He studied at Chavara Vidya Bhavan, andelectrical engineering at Bannari Amman Institute of Technology. He holds a state-level rank in Tamil Nadu Common Entrance Test and is a graduate in Master of Business Administration from Madras University. As of October 2014, he is studying a Ph.D course at Bharathiar University. Adhi first met Jeeva in Orkut in 2005; the latter adopted the moniker "DJ Jeeva Beatz". In 2006, Adhi released Viswaroobam Arambam, considered the first Tamil hip hop mixtape. It also played a major role in promoting hip hop as a part of the Tamil culture. In the same year, he met Yogi B of the Malaysian hip hop group Poetic Ammo, who became Hiphop Tamizha's advisor. "I used to send some of my underground music releases to Yogi, and one day, I received a call from him, but I thought someone was playing a prank on me. It turned out to be him and he encouraged me to start Hiphop Tamizha," recalled Adhi years later. The duo started as underground, until they were asked by the Tamil Nadu Election Commission to compose an election anthem; Adhi never knew how they found the group. Hiphop Tamizha's single "Ezhuvoam Vaa" was eventually chosen as the official anthem for Tamil Nadu's 2011 state elections; though the song was unsuccessful, Adhi and Jeeva considered it at one point their "best work so far". Although Hiphop Tamizha is a duo, Jeeva has seldom made public appearances; Adhi told IndiaGlitz that this is due to his shyness, and compared him to the unseen lion in the emblem of India, which includes four lions, but shows only three. Other independent artists have also collaborated with them, including beatboxer Bharadwaj Balaji (also known as BBB or Triple B) and B-boy Bravo. The official logo of Hiphop Tamizha is a graffiti of Bharati.