Instead, they received a rush of support and empathy, not just from Malaysian Indians but those from other races as well.

“We were ready for hate comments, but about 96% were positive comments from the Malay and Chinese communities and other races as well,” said 30-year-old Vishnu Pathmanaban.

“We were shocked,” he said.

In fact, the two-minute rap video went viral and hit two million views in just two days. Even Singaporeans ‘liked’ the video and posted their comments.

In the video, Vishnu, Jiven Sekar, Vikneswaran Veerasundar and Heer Raj Prem Kumar, rap about how Indians are often perceived as parang-wielding gangsters, mocked for their darker skin tones and often denied scholarships for higher education despite being top scorers.

Jiven, 29, said their video went viral because the song’s lyrics resonated with the many Malaysians who believe it captured the reality on the ground that needed to be told.

“These are things people want to talk about,” he said.

Speaking out on the issue of racial discrimination is not unusual for this quartet as each regularly posts content on their respective YouTube channels.

Vikneswaran, or Vik as he prefers to be called, has performed comedy sketches on the topic before on his Vikarworld YouTube channel, which he started in 2011.

However, this time he wanted to do something that would make an even bigger impact. Hence, the video was shot close to Merdeka Day about a topic that was close to his heart.

“I wanted to talk about our struggles (as Indians). Who else, if not us?” said Vik, 29, who spoke to FMT along with fellow rappers Vishnu and Jiven.

They explained that the rap was performed in Malay and Tamil for a specific reason.

According to Vik, the group chose to rap in the national language so a wider audience could hear the message of how racial discrimination was destroying social unity.

“I was in a shoot with a bunch of Malay celebrities, and I was talking about these issues that Indians faced and they were surprised,” he said.

“The government’s saying something different to what people are feeling. People want to hear about these things (discrimination, racism), and they want to know how to fix the issues,” he said, adding that he felt that the rap video had achieved its goal of creating better awareness of the issue.

For social unity to be a reality, open conversations about sensitive issues needed to happen, said Vishnu. “We need to have tough conversations in a mature manner rather than shutting it down.”

Vikneswaran said it was clear that their video stimulated online discussions among those of different races, which he felt was a good start. He said he also believed that language was an important aspect in promoting unity.

“One of the reasons why there is no unity is because of the language barrier. I see it in schools,” he said, adding that students of the same race often preferred grouping together and speaking in their mother tongue.

“Having that one language is important,” he said, adding that this was one reason why Malay was used as part of the lyrics for the rap.

Jiven said education was an important tool to promote unity and the Malaysian education system could do with some improvements.

The young men said they hoped that their video would encourage others to post similar content on social media. They also said they would love to collaborate with rappers of other races to create awareness on other social issues.

Asked if spreading unity through rap and songs was more effective than political messaging, they said the two mediums could work together to improve their content.

“It goes hand in hand. Art comes from a very emotional point of view, whereas politics comes from a very logical point of view,” said Jiven.

The rappers also took the opportunity to wish everyone a meaningful Malaysia Day.

“Everyone has their own style and culture, just accept and be tolerant of each other,” said Vikar.

“Be kinder to one another,” said Vishnu.

Meanwhile Jiven joked that it was high time Malaysians gave each other the same attention they gave to their love of local food. “The amount of pride that we have for Malaysian food! I think we should give that same pride to everything ‘Malaysian’ that we do.”