One really had to search hard to find the streets where India’s street culture existed. So we decided to make the street easy to find.

By creating our own street. Or gully, as it’s called in Hindi.

We called it Suede Gully.

A collaboration between Divine and his friends from all walk of street culture – rappers, dance crews, graffiti artists, visual artists, street fashion gurus. Together they created India’s biggest street collaboration across 4 cities and 4 languages.

A collaboration that spoke about the struggles that the street culture goes through to express it. A thought captured in the words “Mere joote mein tu chal ke toh dekh” or “Try walking in my shoes”

Suede Gully, India’s largest street collaboration, was launched through a 3.5 minutes long music video. It featured 7 street artists, 8 rappers and 36 dancers from across India, led by underground rapper Divine.

It was shot across gullies in four cities (Mumbai in west, Madurai in south, Shillong in east and Delhi in north) and in four different languages representing the four corners of India (English, Tamil, Khasi and Hindi).

The core idea of establishing and celebrating India’s street culture was delivered through lyrics rapped by Divine in the music video – “Mere Joote Mein Tu Chal Ke Toh Dekh” (try walking in my shoes).

The campaign launched with a teaser splashed across social media, followed by the main video launch. As a digital only campaign, we ensured the track was easily available across platforms on social media

The main launch garnered 12+ million views.

2 million views came in the first 48 hours;

20 million total reach; 600k engagements on

The song was added to over 1000 playlists on various music streaming apps.

The song was awarded ‘Track of the week’ by BBC Asia Network.

The world danced to the new anthem of India's street culture (California, United Kingdom, Leicester, Japan, Australia, India etc.),

We had the likes of Disha Patani, Bollywood star and Virat Kohli, the Indian Captain grooving to the words.

Covered by Rolling Stone, ScoopWhoop, The Indian Express, First Post, Hindustan Times, 101 India etc.

Highest click through of home page banner in 2017 on Shazam – 658k clicks.

3+ million impressions on Saavn, India’s leading music streaming app.

Sales of PUMA Suedes in the first two months were 44% more than pre-campaign period.

And the street movement is getting its own Bollywood movie.

The campaign is built around a music video that was created to introduce India to its underground street culture. Puma Suede collborated with Divine, the face of India’s street culture; who in turn recruited other artists from around the country to represent different languages and genres of street art.

In a country where art, film and music are slotted to be either classical or Bollywood; Suede Gully opened the conversation to underground being a legit classification. And gave India its first street-hold name in Divine.

LOVE FOR INTERNATIONAL STREET CULTURE

The digitally connected youth of India was exposed to the world. From the music they were hearing to the artists they were following, admiration for the international street and hip-hop culture was growing.

TALENT ACROSS INDIA’S STREETS

Our research across the country helped us realise that there was a lot of hidden underground talent in India. Talent existed in the form of art, music, dance, graffiti and a lot more. It had a unique mixture of western influence and local Indian flavour. But, it was all in silos, without one cohesive culture or movement.

ESTABLISHING ONE SINGLE MOVEMENT

With 22 official languages, 1652 unofficial dialects and a unique street language changing from one street to another, the artists in India were diverse. Thus, to create one nationwide street movement, it was imperative to truly represent the diversity of the streets across India.

Background

Hip-hop is the father of street culture, as we know it. And the Puma Suede is considered the most influential sneaker in hip-hop history.

And that’s why for over 50 years, Puma Suede has built itself in every country by associating with its street culture.

Situation:

But the street culture in India was very, very underground. So much so that the face of India’s street culture, Divine, was unknown to even his own city.

Brief:

Introduce India to its street culture and to the torch-bearers of this culture. And in turn would light the way for Puma Suedes to walk on.