Shillong Rapper Reble Pours Raw Emotion Into Her Music

You know that moment when you hear someone rap and it doesn’t feel like a performance, it just feels true? That’s what happened the first time I heard Reble. There was no sugar-coating, no showy posturing, just bars that hit like a gut punch and stayed with me way after the track ended. Naturally, I wanted to know what kind of mind could write like that and how someone gets so comfortable being that unfiltered. We got chatting. And honestly, it’s rare to come across an artist who makes you want to pull out a pen mid-conversation, not because of what they’re saying on paper, but because of the weight behind their words. Reble doesn’t talk in platitudes. She speaks like someone who’s lived enough to know exactly what matters.

From A Woman In Indian Hip Hop

Her entry into rap? Straight survival mode. “Eminem, Tupac, Biggie—those were the ones. Watching 8 Mile flipped a switch,” she tells me. “I connected with the chaos, the struggle. It was like, if he can tell his story, maybe I can tell mine too.” And just like that, music became her lifeline. There’s something instinctive about the way she works. “I don’t prep. I let the beat take over,” she says. No elaborate rituals, no faux mysticism, just raw emotion poured into a mic. It’s not hard to imagine Reble pacing a studio, headphones on, translating every jagged memory into a lyric.

One of the most interesting things about her is how allergic she is to the idea of “fitting in”—especially when it comes to genre. “Labels don’t mean much now. Music’s all over the place, and that’s not a bad thing,” she says. She credits platforms like Instagram and TikTok for blowing up the old structure. “You don’t need someone to hand you a label anymore. You just need to be real.” And she is—especially about being a woman in rap. “People still act like it’s a thing, but I’m just a rapper,” she shrugs. “The only bit that grinds my gears is when festivals pretend to care about gender equality by tossing women on a lineup for appearances. I’m not filler—I’m a headliner.”

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The trauma, the instability, the feeling of never really belonging—that’s what you hear in my music

A big theme in her work is identity—not the curated kind, but the gritty, lived-through version. “Where I come from shaped everything,” she says. “The trauma, the instability, the feeling of never really belonging—that’s what you hear in my music.” It’s not pretty, but it’s hers. And that’s the point. In case you’re wondering—no, her Notes app isn’t stuffed with song scraps or half-cooked rhymes. “I don’t write unless I’m finishing it,” she says. “I keep my bars in a notebook. My Notes app? That’s for personal stuff—how to be a better partner, things like that.” Honestly? Kind of refreshing.

Live shows are where she comes alive. “It’s the connection that gets me. That moment where you see someone in the crowd really feel it—like they know exactly where you’re coming from,” she says. “That’s the magic.”

And as for what’s next? Let’s just say she’s not playing small. “Might be an EP. Might be something bigger. But I want it to be huge. I want to put out the best music South Asia’s ever heard,” she says without blinking. “We need more women who spit fire, not just show up.” She says it like a promise. And if there’s one thing you pick up on when you talk to Reble, it’s that she doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean.

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