How rap carries weight beyond diss culture

From Poetry to the Microphone

Muzamil opens the conversation by acknowledging the growth of rap in Pakistan and his own curiosity about the genre. At 30 years old and raised on American hip-hop, he frames his perspective as an outsider trying to understand why Pakistani rap matters. This sets the stage for Sunny Khan Durrani, a 24-year-old rapper who enters the conversation with a unique lineage.

Sunny’s father was deeply rooted in Urdu literature and classical poetry. As a child, Sunny memorized verses from Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ghalib, learning not just words but the cadence of storytelling. “I used to be very into urdu and urdu adab,” Sunny explains, describing how this foundation led him naturally toward music. By age three, his father noticed him humming constantly on train journeys. Years later, when Sunny moved houses, he discovered his own collection of 1,000 cassettes, a physical archive of the music that shaped him.

Rap became the logical next step. “Because this was how to express how to do it,” Sunny says of discovering the genre. Rap allowed him to take everything he learned from Urdu poetry and apply it to a beat. At 6th or 7th grade, he convinced his father to buy him a computer with the promise of better grades, then taught himself production using Sony Sound Forge and YouTube beats.

The Underground Years and First Tracks

The early 2000s meant limited tools. Sunny recorded his first proper track over a deleted scene from Step Up 3D on a friend’s computer. He was 11 or 12. Then came YouTube, followed by YouTube’s ban in Pakistan, followed by Virtual University where Sunny studied mass communication while building his craft in the shadows. By college, he was already producing his own work and refusing studio sessions that tried to impose someone else’s vision.

Muzamil pushes deeper: what drew Sunny specifically to rap over all other genres? “Rap, sab se bae sharam laga tha,” Sunny answers. “You can say whatever you want to say, and you don’t have to sugar coat it.” This rawness defines his approach. But Sunny is careful to note that his second album, Atiazaz, contained no rap at all. It was soft songs, Sufi influences, ambient textures. Rap is his primary language, but not his only one.

When a Genre Matures on the Wrong Fuel

Muzamil asks whether rap in Pakistan is genuinely maturing as an art form. Sunny agrees it is growing, but with a crucial caveat: quantity does not equal quality. Three years ago, a new rap track would arrive every few months and the entire community would gather. Now, 6 to 8 tracks drop every week. Growth, yes. But maturity requires something deeper: an audience that understands the message and can build something lasting from it.

The bigger problem, Sunny argues, is dissing. Pakistani rap was supposed to mirror the genuine beefs of American hip-hop, like the Tupac versus Biggie rivalry. Those were competitions rooted in respect, boundaries, and artistic skill. “A certain level of respect still exists of the alternate person and it’s like a competition rather than a pissing contest,” Sunny says of the genuine era.

Now, almost everything is manufactured beef for viral numbers. Rappers diss on a Monday, discuss it on Instagram Tuesday, resolve the beef by Friday, then repeat the next week. The India rap scene offers a clear example: two prominent rappers dissed each other, then within one week went live together laughing about how they both needed the views. “Mostly rappers are using it for clickbait, like honestly,” Sunny says. The problem deepens when brands suddenly flood in. “When did brands care about rap? When it was already making millions of views,” he points out. Exploitation dressed as opportunity.

Why Dissing Misses the Point

For Sunny, the shift from art to weapon troubles him deeply. His first album, Khabar Nama, tackled mental health, corrupt clerics, forced marriages, and honor killings. These songs carried weight. Songs like Hasil told a deeply personal story of heartbreak, yet people messaged him months later saying it stopped them from attempting suicide. One listener wrote: “I heard la hasil before I tried something bad. Okay I’m fine. I cannot believe I’m seeing all these messages from you.”

This is what art should do. Dissing does the opposite. It fragments the audience, turns listeners into spectators of drama rather than participants in meaning. Muzamil points out that rock music died in Pakistan not because it lost talent but because it became a trend, not a movement. Once longer hair and headbanging stopped being cool, the entire genre evaporated. Sunny worries rap is heading the same direction, chasing commercialization instead of building something timeless.

The Weight of Authenticity

When asked about his future, Sunny returns to his core principle. In his notebook, on the very first page, he has written: “Please quit music the day you lie on the microphone.” He will not fabricate an image, chase a trend, or compromise the honesty that defines his work. An album is planned. After that, he will see what emerges. But the rule stands: the moment he stops being truthful, he stops making music.

Muzamil acknowledges the bind: rap needs money to grow, but commercialization threatens to write its death sentence. Yet here stands Sunny, 24 years old, refusing brand deals that don’t align with his vision, producing his own music, and speaking directly to people awake at night with depression because they need to hear that someone understands. That is the work. That is the art. Everything else is negotiable.