Naved Shaikh aka Naezy is a Mumbai rapper who dabbles in Hindi and Urdu lyrics. Naezy has quickly become a rising star in the Indian hip-hop scene, all thanks to his impressive flow and slang-inflected rhymes.

Naved started his personal journey into the art form with The Schizophrenics, a hip-hop collective he formed with his friends from Khalsa College, Mumbai. In January 2014, he released ‘Aafat’ garnering over 1,000,000 views on YouTube. The song’s success was followed by ‘Raastey Kathin’ and a few other collaborations.

Naezy also wrote for and performed ‘Birju’, the lead single from Hindi film director Ajay Chandok’s Hey Bro. In April 2015, Naezy took the country by storm with his definitive hit ‘Mere Gully Mein’ in collaboration with fellow Mumbai rapper Divine and Sez, which racked up 1.3 million views on YouTube and became a viral hit. Naezy’s story inspired filmmaker Disha Rindani to create a short film titled Bombay 70, which went on to win the Silver Gateway of India award for Best Short Film at the Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI).

Naezy intertwines his signature brand of lyrics and compositions to highlight the problems that exist in city’s ghettos and to resonate with the outrage felt by the country’s youth with regard to class & culture barriers, religious differences, failing education systems and dearth of economic opportunities provided by the system, his latest hits with Haq Hai, Asal Hustle, Tehelka, and more – which have garnered over 2 million views and close to 30,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel.