Kidd Santhe writes Naa Vera Level for Chennai's auto drivers, not himself
Malaysian rapper Kidd Santhe launches Naa Vera Level in Chennai under Sony Music, a Tamil hip-hop track that turns auto drivers, not the artist, into the hero.
Malaysian Tamil rapper Kidd Santhe released Naa Vera Level in Chennai on Thursday, and spent most of his time at the mic making the case that the song’s hero is not him. It is the auto driver. The track, his first international Tamil single under Sony Music, is built around a flat tyre and a stranger in Chennai who stopped to help.
Kidd Santhe has been on the rise inside the wider Desi hip-hop scene out of Malaysia, where he raps in a mix of Tamil, English, Malay and Punjabi, and where earlier singles like API, SAMPAH, Ambani Money and Penjenayah pulled him into the conversation around new-generation Tamil hip-hop. Naa Vera Level is the project he wanted to anchor to Tamil Nadu, and it is released by Sony Music Malaysia together with Sony Music South.
The story he told for the song’s origin is small and specific. The first time he came to Chennai, his car punctured and stalled by the side of the road. An auto driver stopped, and Kidd Santhe ended up helping him change the tyre instead of the other way round. That moment, he said, became the whole concept of Naa Vera Level. “Naa vera level is not me,” he said at the mic. “It is the auto drivers.” His framing carried into the pressures he wanted the song to surface: rising fuel costs, maintenance bills that don’t stop, and bike-taxi apps eating into daily fares. The track, he said, was a way to push some of that respect back out toward the drivers who move the city.
Director Parthiban Ravi shot the music video and called it his first international album, after two earlier Sony Music videos. He credited producer Dhilipan, and Guna and Ray for what he described as Mother of Dragons-style backing on every track. Choreographer Aakash, he said, taught Kidd Santhe a routine in three days flat. Featured artist Ravana Ram came into the project after a single Instagram DM and one studio session, a turnaround Kidd Santhe said had surprised him as much as anyone in the room.
Sony Music South’s Revathi Mariyappan said the original plan was to shoot the song in Malaysia, and that switching the production to Chennai was Kidd Santhe’s call. The label backed it, and she framed the welcome the artist had been given in Tamil Nadu as the kind of opening that could pull more Malaysian Tamil musicians toward South Indian releases. The bet, on her side, is that this is a first release rather than a one-off.
Naa Vera Level is live now on the Sony Music YouTube channel. Kidd Santhe closed the morning with a single ask, that listeners push the song forward to the drivers it was built around.