This rapper reached half a billion streams with one song. He's still forging his identity

Sooraj Cherukat, known as Hanumankind, says he's caught between 'multiple worlds'. But he doesn't want other people defining him.

Hanumankind shot to global fame in 2024 for his hit, Big Dawgs. Source: SBS

For a long time, Sooraj Cherukat, otherwise known as Hanumankind, was facing daunting questions about who he was and what he wanted to do with his life.

It may be difficult now to imagine the rapper, known best for his global hit Big Dawgs, experiencing anything less than self-assuredness. The song has over half a billion listens on Spotify and a YouTube video released alongside the single has cleared nearly 300 million views. That video features Cherukat performing at the base of the 'well of death', a high-risk stunt show featuring cars and motorcycles whirring around a near-vertical wall above his head.

But preceding his explosive rise to international fame, the Indian-born rapper had some restless, soul-searching years and says he only recently came to consider his career in music as a permanent fixture in his life.

Between 'multiple worlds'

A childhood of shifting around the world frequently after being born in India — moving to France, Nigeria, Egypt and Dubai — and later spending most of his childhood in Houston, Texas, made it difficult to get a foothold and establish a sense of genuine belonging, Cherukat says.

"It's like either you're an outsider looking in or you're an insider looking out," the 33-year-old told The Feed during a recent conversation in Sydney.

He describes being caught between "multiple worlds" growing up and, while Houston welcomed him and he fell in love with the city, he was forced to conceptualise the idea of 'home' in a different way to others.

"It's not really a place or a set structure — it's a feeling, right? [One] that I try and find wherever I am.

"I had to do that so that I kind of don’t lose myself."

Cherukat's early working life was also underpinned by a deep sense of uncertainty and experimentation. His former careers include personal training and a job at investment bank giant Goldman Sachs in India — a job he says opened his eyes to a grinding lifestyle.

"Working over there [in India] is very different, so I really was able to see how it is in terms of pushing yourself and being in this kind of environment that just extracts everything from you for so little — for peanuts," he says.

While he had nurtured an affinity for writing from a young age, Cherukat didn’t commit to performing until he was in his late 20s in Bangalore. He says he quickly saw it as a respite from all of his personal confusion with work.

"It was a place for me to just let go, you know, shake it off and be like, 'Alright, this is my solace, right?'"

"So much of what I was doing at the time just didn’t feel like I was actually doing what I like — I didn’t have purpose in my life. So, this is the one space that I was able to do that."

Global success

Rapping may have started as a side note, but it has since launched Cherukat to global fame and superstardom in India, where he now resides in Bengaluru (Bangalore).

While Cherukat had already gained wide acclaim among Indian audiences, his single Big Dawgs broke onto the global stage in 2024, securing a spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 9 on the Australian ARIA charts. ASAP Rocky later contacted Cherukat to create a remix of Big Dawgs featuring a verse with the renowned US rapper.

He has since released his debut mixtape Monsoon Season, which includes the single Run It Up, which features Chenda drums, a traditional wooden drum from Cherukat's home state of Kerala. He has also established an epic cinematic visual language to accompany his music, working closely with director Bijoy Shetty to create music videos that attract tens of millions of views. The video for Run It Up has attracted 68 million views on YouTube.

Cherukat has also made a number of guest appearances on tracks including the remix of Ed Sheeran's song Don’t Look Down and a remix of the Fred Again song, Victory Lap.

A 'rapper from India'

Despite these massive successes — or perhaps because of them — Cherukat has continued to face questions about how he perceives his national and cultural identity. In recent years he has faced some criticism for asserting that he sees himself as a "rapper from India" rather than an "Indian rapper", with some fans viewing the statement as an attempt to distance himself from his home country.

Cherukat says the statement was never intended to dismiss his heritage.

"Whenever people put 'Indian' in front of anything, especially in the outside world — Indian music, Indian movies, Indian food, Indian culture, whatever it is — there's a set way that people see things. There's stereotypes that are enforced," he says.

"I’m from India, which is very important. It's where my roots are, it’s a huge part of who I am — but you don’t get to decide who the f--k I am, right?"

Cherukat also bristles at the danger of capturing all Indian cultures, traditions and languages under one banner.

"I’m not going to let nobody, you know, define that as one big unit. Like, there's so much more to it."

He's also been forced to navigate his own family's shock at his career choice, saying his parents don't necessarily understand or respect his work and he has a "strained" relationship with his father. However, he says he's learned to look past the differences with his parents and view any cultural rifts as a product of his own opportunities.

"They come from a different generation, a different time and a different background. My parents were raised in Kerala, from a very different environment and different beliefs," he says.

"I had the luxury and privilege to actually learn about being mindful, right? To learn about, you know, breaking these cycles and chains and generational weight that we’ve been carrying. I don’t think they did."

Cherukat says he's learned to give his parents "grace" and recognise they "did the best they could" despite not necessarily agreeing with their beliefs and behaviour.

'Here today, gone tomorrow'

While Cherukat acknowledges the intensity of his fame has changed the shape of his life, particularly in his home country in India where he's now forced to keep a low profile and limits his movement, he says he tries to keep a realistic perspective on his success.

"There's a lot of things that I have to be aware of and be careful about because, you know, it comes with the territory. But I also like to take the time to remember that really, at the core, the root of it, nothing really has changed."

He says, until very recently, he felt the same sense of transience in music that he had in all the other jobs he tried out in his 20s. Now, he's started to take his success more seriously.

"Everything else in my life had been so impermanent until then, right? Always been on the move, it's here today, gone tomorrow," he says.

"I'm learning to take the responsibility of all these changes because when you do have a voice and you do have this kind of a space that not too many people get — it's like, what do you do with it? What is it that you want to do with it?"