I was disappointed to find that I was misquoted across the piece, which twisted my politics. Below are some corrections:

‘I was walking on the road with a child from Dharavi and he said…’
- I was not walking with a ‘child’ from Dharavi. I was walking with BBoy Akku, a Dancer and activist who is also one of the founding members of our Collective, SlumGods.
‘This made me think in terms of class differences and this is when I began to collaborate with a dancer from Dharavi’
- I was already collaborating with the hip hop artists from Dharavi. The experience which she mentions simply helped us coin the name of our collective: SlumGods!
Further, I am a deportee and the son of a taxi driver father and tailor mother, I have been class conscience since birth. I did not need to have a profound wake-up moment with a ‘poor’ person to understand class.

‘Our band member Wazulu was an orphan, adopted by a white family. He eventually ran away from them as he felt he didn’t fit into their mould. Racism, in fact, is very rampant in America. They say that racism doesn’t exist. Yeah, for you. You didn’t go to the airport and get singled out.’
- We are not a band. Wazulu is a collective member, and his lived experience connects with SlumGods.
When I mentioned racism, I was primarily referring to racism in India – the overwhelming idolization of europeans and the implication that we must learn from them, and the absolute privilege and hierarchy white people enjoy in India – from white artists getting an immediate, unquestioned spotlight on stages that Indians don’t have access to, to writing Graffiti on our Holy Walls (i.e. Banaras) – to the gentrification of our cities and spaces.

‘…and a Sikh rapper, Manjeet Sethi, from LA and established SlumGods.’
- its MANDEEP SETHI.

Thank you for making the appropriate edits.

- Heera