biography

Chirag is a recording/performing artist, writer, facilitator and educator. He has recorded and released eight albums under Chee Malabar and hip-hop groups Himalayan Project and Oblique Brown. He continues to perform his music and speak at universities and colleges around issues of American identity and race. He was featured in the landmark South Asian-American documentary ‘Brown Like Dat’, and his lyrics and work are the subject of the book Hip Hop Desi’s and a Global Race Consciousness by Northwestern University professor Nitasha Sharma.

In 2014, Chirag and Filmmaker Tanuj Chopra’s co-written screenplay Chee and T was awarded a $100,000 grant from Visual Communications. His writing has appeared in The New Enquiry, The Asian American Literary Review, Scroll, and Wasafiri Magazine. In addition, his work has been featured in various anthologies about Hip Hop.

Prior to moving back to New York City, he served as a Program Director and Teaching Artist with Street Poets Inc., a non-profit poetry-based peacemaking organization dedicated to the creative process as a force for individual and community transformation.

He has facilitated over 60 retreats at universities and colleges around socio-political issues and has consulted for numerous organizations and colleges such as ESPN, Development Without Limits, Rutgers University, Arts for Incarcerated Youth, Young Adult Library Services Association, Street Poets Inc., and The Posse Foundation.

Chirag is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University (B.A. Political Science) and holds an M.F.A. in Fiction from Brooklyn College.

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