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One year of Gully Boy: 15 best moments from Zoya Akhtar - Ranveer Singh - Alia Bhatt ’s hip-hop tribute

As Gully Boy turns one, we look back at our favourite moments from the iconic rap musical.

Team CE

Updated:14th Feb, 2020 at 10:13 PM

1. The greatest stealth job in recent memory. Murad looks at Safeena in a bus. It’s their meet-cute, you feel. But then they hold hands in a backseat. Zoya, barely warming up, gets an early jump on us

2. Murad might be the rapper, but Safeena spits fire in this scene with her cracker line. He christens her ‘danger appa’.

3. Safeena gifts Murad her I-Pad. It’ll be a long night, he can watch a film on it. He tells her he can never gift her something like that. She smiles back. They seal the moment with a kiss.

4. MC Sher coolly shreds hecklers at a college performance. Murad, wide-eyed and overjoyed, literally bloats up with excitement. Mentor and mentee are yet to meet. But a connection’s made.

5. Rapper Emiway Bantai makes his first appearance. He also shows up in the final battle.

6. Murad approaches MC Sher with his rhymes. He requests him to spit them out, saying he ‘isn’t comfortable’ doing it himself. Sher responds: “If everyone gets comfortable, who will write rap?”

7. Murad chokes out in a battle. Later, Sher pep-talks him on the street: “Steal a beat. Take your hunger. Make your song.”

8. Murad aces his first YouTube video. Shyly, he accepts the moniker ‘Gully Boy’.

9. A bouncer turns Murad away from a club. He gets back into the car and explodes. The lyric that’s playing is Naezy’s, one of the two rappers who inspired the film.

10. They often meet on this bridge. It separates his world from hers. Cinematographer Jay Oza finds the perfect angle for the frame.

11. In this quietest of scenes, a classmate calls him Murad his stage name - perhaps the first time anyone has done that. It brightens Murad up, but also surprises him. He’s finally arrived.

12. Ranveer Singh and Siddhant Chaturvedi recreated the energy of Mere Gully Mein. A pivotal moment in the film, and a nostalgic one for fans of Divine and Naezy.

13. Moeen Bhai (Vijay Varma) breaks into an impromptu rap. ‘nuff said!

14. Murad faces up to his father in his new house. There’s anger in his eyes, and a hard-won self-respect.

15. Seconds before erupting on stage, Murad pounds his mic on his chest. He’s soaking it all in, collecting his zen. The eye of the storm.

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