Adhi (born Adhithya Ramachandran Venkatapathy ) was born on 20 February 1990. [2] [7] Jeeva R. was born 29 June 1991. [8] Adhi's family is from Sathyamangalam in the Erode district . [9] [10] Adhi was born into a middle-class family with no knowledge of music or cinema. His father works at Bharathiar University while his mother comes from an agricultural background. [3] Adhi's first exposure to rap came when his neighbour showed him Michael Jackson 's " Jam ". [11] His interest in hip hop music started developing in the tenth grade. He uploaded rap songs to the internet and got positive responses from people expressing interest in his music, who also encouraged him to start rapping in Tamil. [12] His decision to rap in Tamil rather than English was made, in his words, to avoid looking like a " wannabe ". [11] Adhi named his account on the video-sharing site YouTube "Hiphop Tamizha", with a profile picture of the Tamil