යකා Crew
3 songs performed
Yaka Crew (යකා ක්රූ) is a Sri Lankan rap and hip-hop collective built around the singer, rapper and producer Chanuka Moragoda, who records as Chanuka Mora. Working almost entirely in Sinhala, the group made its name on YouTube and the live circuit with energetic, story-driven tracks rooted in everyday Sri Lankan life rather than imported hip-hop tropes.
Yaka Crew is best understood as a collective rather than a single front act. Chanuka Moragoda is the central figure who writes, composes and leads the project, but he has consistently described it as a group effort, a band of performers who carry the songs on stage. The rapper Dilo is among the regular voices who give the live sets their drive, and the line-up has grown to a full band that performs at concerts and at weddings alike.
The name itself plays on the Sinhala word “yaka” (demon or spirit), a motif the group returns to in both song titles and stage imagery.
Yaka Crew’s catalogue mixes rap verses with melodic Sinhala hooks. “Yakkuth Pitiyata” (යක්කුත් පිටියට), released in 2018, was one of the tracks that established the act, and “Ravana” (රාවණ), credited to Yaka Crew with Dilo and Chanuka Mora, became one of its most widely shared songs, spawning several DJ remixes. “Karawala Hodda” continues the group’s habit of building a whole song around a single vivid everyday image.
These three songs are hosted on Lyrics-lk with Sinhala lyrics, transliteration in English (Singlish), and an English translation, so a bilingual listener can follow both the words and their meaning.
What sets Yaka Crew apart in the local scene is a willingness to keep the rap in plain Sinhala and to draw on Sri Lankan references, folklore and humour. The crew has expanded from online singles into a stage act under projects such as “Adawwa”, and Chanuka Moragoda’s parallel solo releases as Chanuka Mora feed the same audience. For listeners searching under either spelling, Yaka Crew and the Yaka Crew band point to the same collective led by Moragoda.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Yaka Crew.