He was a quiet boy who found solace and happiness in his books and shied away from social conversations, which he considered awkward. But like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, Joslee unfolded his brand new wings that allowed him to fly. The awakening finally happened, all thanks to the telly tube. A college-going Joslee discovered the world of rap and got instantly hooked onto it. For, in the sequin-studded, jewellery-bedecked and bling entities rapping their pain and feelings in rhythmic beats and moves, he found himself.
“This genre influenced me. Music was something I always latched on to for happiness and rap gave me an identity and freedom. In hip-hop, I found an element linked to my personality — something I could identify with,” Joslee recalls. In very succinct terms, he explains that connect, “Hip-hop was all about rhythm and poetry and how you express your pain and feelings in rhythmic beats.”
He was writing his own rap songs by 2010 in which he expressed his angst and pain. The journey of self-discovery led him to pick the stage name Lonely Doggy and today, he is one of Kerala’s very few rappers. Very recently, Lonely Doggy was part of the Ajith-starrer Nerkonda Paarvai where he played himself — a DJ and rapper — in the intro song showing an EDM festival. He is also playing the part of a rapper in the Sunny Leone-starrer Rangeela in a club song sequence. In fact, it was his style, attitude and sense of flair in Rangeela that had a key person recommending his name for Nerkonda Paarvai.
Lonely Doggy has rapped in 30-plus films across four South Indian languages and there is no stopping this determined rapper. But then, determination alone cannot give you your daily bread and butter and the young rapper is candid enough to express how a rapping career is not exactly a money spinner. “I work in Chennai as a cyber security solution provider for IT and major banks and that is my profession. It is tough to earn money through my passion for music. Independent music by far is not very popular and one cannot hope to earn a lot through it, especially in the rap genre that is not very popular in films,” he reveals.
Lonely Doggy is currently working on the single rap album Push, in which he has collaborated with a Mumbai-based artist called Brij and of course, he has his films.
