Sofia Ashraf (born 1987) is an Indian rapper and singer. Her songs address the negligence of corporations that fail to clean up industrial disasters. Her 2008 song ''Don't Work for Dow'' criticizes Dow's failure to compensate victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in India. In 2015, she released ''Kodaikanal Won't'', a music video addressing mercury pollution in

Kodaikanal Kodaikanal () (English: ) is a municipality and hill station in Dindigul district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is situated at an altitude of in the Palani hills of the Western Ghats. Kodaikanal was established in 1845 to serve as a r ...

from a thermometer factory owned by

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

, a multinational

consumer goods A final good or consumer good is a final product ready for sale that is used by the consumer to satisfy current wants or needs, unlike an intermediate good, which is used to produce other goods. A microwave oven or a bicycle is a final good. W ...

company. In June 2016, she released "Dow vs. Bhopal: a Toxic Rap Battle".

Early life

In 1987, Sofia Ashraf was born and brought up in an orthodox Malayali Muslim household in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. Sofia was part of a Muslim youth group in Chennai, and studied Islamic History and Philosophy ardently. She studied graphic design in Stella Maris College, Chennai, where she used to zealously participate in extracurricular activities. She began rapping on stage during a college festival, where she donned a

Hijab Hijab (, ) refers to head coverings worn by Women in Islam, Muslim women. Similar to the mitpaḥat/tichel or Snood (headgear), snood worn by religious married Jewish women, certain Christian head covering, headcoverings worn by some Christian w ...

and rapped to her own lyrics in which she questioned the people's attitude towards Muslims after

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. The press referred to her as "The Burqa Rapper" after the incident. Despite this she now identifies as

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

and has several tattoos.

Career

Ashraf worked as a creative supervisor for

Ogilvy & Mather Ogilvy is a New York City-based British advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It was founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather as a London-based agency. In 1964, the firm became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City a ...

, a global advertising firm that counts

as one of its clients. She quit the firm in 2015, a few months before making the hit single "Kodaikanal Won't". O&M executive chairman Piyush Pandey said the firm had wanted Ashraf to stay on, but that she left to pursue a new career path in 2015. In 2008, she sang "Don't Work for Dow" while wearing a

hijab Hijab (, ) refers to head coverings worn by Women in Islam, Muslim women. Similar to the mitpaḥat/tichel or Snood (headgear), snood worn by religious married Jewish women, certain Christian head covering, headcoverings worn by some Christian w ...

to criticize Dow for its response to the

Bhopal disaster On 3 December 1984, over 500,000 people in the vicinity of the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India were exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate, in what is considered the world's worst ind ...

in 1984. In July 2015, she released the single "Kodaikanal Won't" to protest the pollution of a river in

. In the song she appeals to Unilever to help former workers in Kodaikanal, whose river was contaminated 14 years before with mercury from a thermometer plant owned by Unilever. Ashraf released a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

video of the song to campaign against the

mercury poisoning Mercury poisoning is a type of metal poisoning due to exposure to mercury. Symptoms depend upon the type, dose, method, and duration of exposure. They may include muscle weakness, poor coordination, numbness in the hands and feet, skin rashe ...

. Ashraf used the

Nicki Minaj Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty (born December 8, 1982), known professionally as Nicki Minaj ( ), is a Trinidadian rapper, singer, and songwriter. Regarded as the "Queen of Rap" and one of the most influential rappers of all time, she is noted for her ...

tune "

Anaconda Anacondas or water boas are a group of large boas of the genus ''Eunectes''. They are a semiaquatic group of snakes found in tropical South America. Three to five extant and one extinct species are currently recognized, including one of the l ...

" as the beat for "Kodaikanal Won't." In 2015, she collaborated with Chennai-based singer Maalavika Manoj and Sapta on the song Deen. The song was written by Ashraf to combat moral policing and insist the faith must be a choice, not an imposition. Ashraf has recorded a song each in the Bollywood movie '' Jab Tak Hai Jaan'' and the Tamil movie

Maryan (film) ''Maryan'' ( ) is a 2013 Indian Tamil language, Tamil-language Survival film, survival drama film directed by Bharat Bala, and produced by V. Ravichandran (film producer), V. Ravichandran, under the banner Aascar Films, starring Dhanush and Pa ...

, for music director

A. R. Rahman Allah Rakha Rahman (; born A. S. Dileep Kumar; 6 January 1967), also known by the initialism ARR, is an Indian music composer, record producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and philanthropist known for his works in Indian cinem ...

, and also for Santhosh Kumar in his

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

film '' Inimey Ippadithan''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashraf, Sofia 1987 births Indian women rappers Indian atheists Indian former Sunni Muslims Women musicians from Tamil Nadu Living people University of Madras alumni Singers from Chennai 21st-century Indian women singers 21st-century Indian singers