MUMBAI: Social media has its perks; more so, if you’re a relatively unknown albeit talented artist hoping for that one breakthrough. Under self-made Facebook page ‘Rajwansh Art’, artist Aman Rajwansh re-imagined several western musicians (mostly, hip-hop) in Indian avatars.

Illustrator and digital artist from Jalandhar, dissatisfied with his older photo manipulation efforts, moved into vector illustrations. With the latest effort, Rajwansh handpicked nine western relevant musicians from pop and hip-hop genres called ‘Desi Kalakaar’.

Holy messenger of spirituality 'Drake' baba

The ever-enthusiastic Gujju at Navratri 'Ludacris'


The butcher-er of hip-hop ‘Rick Ross’?


Snoop re-imagined as pot-smoking 'baba'. Yup.


The king of rap. The mafia of verses. Eminem Bhai.


The defender of hip-hop. The ever reliant 'Usher' as desi cop


The bully or the neta. Pitbullinder Ji.


No beating your girlfriends here. Chris Brown the Coolie


Sorry! Nath-that-spoilt-brat Bieber


Not only did Rajwansh achieved creative output through his illustrations, but the re-imagining of western musicians to the desi avatars extended to their identities too.

What began as an experiment surely led to a viral phenomenon for Rajwansh, as the ‘art’ received appreciation from none other than Usher. The music icon has started ‘following’ the Punjabi illustrator on Instagram.

“As hip-hop artists and rappers are the most popular and steaming hot for youth like me, so I thought it would be nice to try this new genre of creating there illustration with Indian masala-mix to spice it up. I wanted to create something which would attract young generation. As we see the younger generation is really into music and entertainment, so i wanted to create a fusion between both art and music. I had various other ideas but this was my favourite to showcase rappers and Hollywood singers as desi versions which i named ‘Desi Kalakaar’”, said Rajwansh, when contacted by Radioandmusic.com.

The artist’s page has over 4.5k ‘likes’ on Facebook so far, and surely, the recent project would lead to a bigger response on social media further.