Hanumankind IS JUST GETTING STARTED

THE BURGEONING SUCCESS OF 'BIG DAWGS' IN RECENT WEEKS HAS PROVIDED THE KERALA RAPPER WITH A PLATFORM TO BECOME A TRULY GLOBAL MUSIC SUPERSTAR

- PEONY HIRWANI

“The past few weeks have been a lot to process, but me and the boys are taking it one day at a time. It’s cool to see how the world has embraced us,” Hanumankind says in a tone that is calm, composed and disarming. He is in between a photo shoot at the studio in south Mumbai as we speak. All the accolades and adulation that have come his way in the last few weeks do not seem to have fazed him. A burger and fries that he asked for has just arrived, and he makes sure that he shares it with the people around. Even if the new celebrity status sits lightly on him, it has been very concerning for his family. “They were even more overwhelmed than I was,” HMK, as he is widely known, says, “I must keep my composure, and they’re the ones going, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I just want to make sure they’re okay because they’re not really prepared for this kind of stuff. For them to be dealing with people calling and showing up at the house can be a little scary, so it’s my job to protect them.”

Considering the speed at which the popularity of his breakout track “Big Dawgs” has skyrocketed around the world in the last few weeks, and the overnight global fame that followed, what his family has been going through is understandable. The song was released in late July 2024, and by early August it had become the first English track by an Indian artist to reach No.1 on the India Spotify chart. In the following weeks, it climbed to No. 9 on Billboard Global 200 charts, and No. 8 on the US chart, the highest position again for an English track by an Indian. It has been on the charts in countries ranging from Latvia, Austria, Ukraine, and Germany to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, New Zealand, and Switzerland. With 132 million streams on Spotify, the song is still holding tight at No. 8 on Spotify India chart, and No. 9 on Spotify Global Top 50 Chart.