Patriotic Counter Culture Takes Over Hearts and Minds of Russian Youngsters
On Thursday the Kremlin hosted a meeting of the Presidential Council for Culture and Art. A lively and heated conversation lasted for more than 3 hours. The role of the state, cultural policy were discussed. Putin seems so interested in the topic that he suggested the creators themselves draft a bill on the state cultural policy. Thus, there will be something to discuss. In the meantime, Putin turns on the Culture TV channel in his spare time.
Vladimir Putin: "You were right to say that social advertising is lacking. Asa for the Culture TV channel, it's working, it's good, interesting, for me, for example, when I have time I watch the Culture TV channel".
However, there are phenomena in Russian culture that you can hardly see on the Culture TV channel. For example, rappers. Their audience in social networks is tens of millions this year. First of all, it's the youth. Although for adults the modern youth culture, of course, is of interest. After all, veterans once were teenagers too. Of course, they were also murmured at by those who were born half a century earlier. Let's not be so strict, but instead take a closer look at them.
"Hear me and pull me out of the deep,
Take me to my imaginary city,
which is paved with gold.
I dream of the faraway,
reigned by mercy,
with butter mountains and wine lakes".
Anton Lyadov is reporting on the phenomenon of the year.
Hundreds of phone flashes, thousands of hands raised in time with songs. Stadiums, arenas are packed out. He's rapping that he's no leader or warrior or dissident, he's just a writer. When he approaches the stands, the fans drop everything, just to touch their idol.
The person on the stage is known as Oxxxymiron. His Mom is a librarian, his father is a theoretical physicist. Several years ago, he posted a song on a minor site, today he's taken by the hands directly to the car, otherwise the crowd will tear him. Another stadium in two or three days. Two hours of songs, rap and communication with the audience.
Miron Fyodorov, Oxxxymiron: "I had no idea that my scrawls, which I made when I was 14, would turn into my job, that I would become famous. Like most guys, I rapped because listened to rap and I wanted to be like those cool guys. I wanted to rap as coolly as them, tell something about myself, it was my motivation".
Some are inspired by how he motivates young people:
It's important to build an empire, but your own.
Otherwise, someone else will build an empire.
Who? Someone else's government or a local prince.
Start your own empire.
Others enjoy his performance in rap battles. It's a separate genre of rap. In English, this means a fight or a struggle.
Two months ago a world-scale battle took place. American Dizaster vs Russian Oxxxymiron. Here's an extract for you in Russian, the rest was in English peppered with German and even Arabic.
Oxxxymiron:
Tell me, American, what makes you cool?
Dude, you have eyes for my loot? God, take it.
Your eyes are forever hazed,
do you have your cornea inflamed?
When the genre of battles only appeared in Russia, rappers simply insulted each other by humiliating their loved ones. But now it's a "lame", a buzzword meaning shame. The real claim is to find weaknesses in the creativity of the opponent. They believe that they follow in the footsteps of literary critics: Belinsky, Bakhtin, Dobrolyubov.
Gnoynyi, rapper:
"Your rap is like pulp fiction.
It's a set of the most boring cliches ever".
The one in the red is Vyacheslav aka Gnoynyi (meaning Festering). Before he won the battle, he worked in a shopping center from 9 am to 11 pm as an IT administrator. Often he spent the night right at work, in the equipment room, on a mattress. His audience has multiplied, he sells out concert halls across the country. He works at a TV channel.
Obviously, the rap battle genre embraced by hip-hop has reached a new level.
Roma Zhigan, rapper: "Hip Hop used to be a small subculture. Today it's a huge culture. This year 3 completely different musicians sold out Olimpiyskiy. They are Oxxxymiron, Timati and Basta".
About 6 years ago, few people attended their performances. Today they sell out concert halls so that there aren't enough tickets for everyone.
The Khleb band aren't classical rappers. They're rather comedians who realized that young people listen to rap even if it does not make any sense. The song telling how they make sandwiches with sausage has gained 10 million views on the Internet:
"I open the fridge, there's sausage.
I open a breadbin and get 2 slices".
The youth knows by heart the verse which has only 2 words:
"Tea! Sugar! I can offer some candies!"
Kirill Trifonov, Khleb band member: "When we first organized concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, we had only five songs. We just played them three times"
Alexander Shuliko, Khleb band member: "Since we have one-minute songs, in five minutes the concert was over"
A new concept of commercial rap appeared. It doesn't load the audience with meaning, but cheers it and sells well.
Another popular character is Ivan Dremin, nicknamed Face. His rhyme "Burger in St. Petersburg" along with other songs, where he talks about a luxury life, made him famous all around the country not only among the pupils. But concerts in the regions are often canceled. It is enough to hear a couple of lines to understand why. However, it is rather difficult to find those that can be shown on air:
"I'm smoking, and I'm easy,
I'm boozing, and I'm easy.
20,000 for trainers,
I'm spending money for some bullshit.
I'm spending it nonstop!"
Some call him talented, others say such a rap should not exist at all.
Oleg Nechiporenko (Kizaru), rapper: "It affects young people, they listen to him, some believe him. Some heed his words, these are mostly small children. It will pass very quickly".
Kirill Tolmatsky (Detsl), rapper: "Rap has degraded. While we used to put a premium on poetry, now everyone is focusing on aggression. We also had aggression, but it was meaningful. Now the aggression is meaningless. For some reason the lowest vices of mankind are now in the spotlight".
Freestyle rap is a separate genre. A video showing rapper Ivan Alekseev (Noize MC), 32, improvising in a train, has scored 6 million views:
"We'll do what they expect from us.
Now I'd like you to applaud our hard work.
Do you feel lazy?
Sorry, you might have had a very hard day".
The genre implies that the musician starts rapping to music, often on the spot:
"You're noughties, we have different eyes.
Dateless hills are drifting by".
It's the square in front of the Museum of Modern Art in the center of Barcelona. One of the most popular Russian rappers, who is now actively listened to abroad, lives here.
Oleg Nechiporenko aka Kizaru raps in the genre of trap, the word starts with "t". This kind of rap is devoted to everything that they try to protect the youth from: robberies, psychotropics. Oleg himself had sold drugs since the age of 15 in St. Petersburg. As a result, he fled abroad to get in a Spanish jail.
Oleg Nechiporenko (Kizaru). rapper: "It's simple, it attracts bad things. No adult was with me. There was no Dad who'd have told me: "Are you a fool? What are you doing? No good will come out of it".
Rapper Roma Zhigan, influenced by trap and American films showing car thefts, started to steal cars himself. As a result, he was imprisoned twice. When released, he began to rap again, he's gone straight.
Roma Zhigan, rapper: "A whole crowd is following your creativity and knows your songs by heart. It's cool. A person who tried this drug will not want to try any other one".
Now he is filming a documentary about Russian hip hop. It's the first chronicle about how today's stars started with small clubs, home studios.
Richard Semashkov (Rich), rapper: "It's the bedroom and the studio. Here's the new microphone in the corner".
Foam on the wall, a pile of clothes to suppress noise, a PC program. Today rap is recorded without expensive studios too.
Richard Semashkov (Rich), rapper: "Why do they listen to rap? Because the language environment has changed recently. First it was bardic music (composed and performed by amateurs) to be followed by rock, now there are rappers who more or less speak the language of teenagers".
Popularity brought money. For example, a rapper nicknamed Feduk has seen the price for his performance grow 4 times, up to 400 thousand rubles, since his hit, as the saying goes, was "broadcast by every iron": “It's so beautiful here that I stop breathing".
Fedor Insarov (Feduk), rapper: "When my taxi was stopped by police for a search at night, at this very moment this song started playing on the radio".
Not everyone is chasing fame, or hype, as it called on the Internet. Now anti-hype is trendy. It's against all fashionable, popular, fake and pointed.
Rapper Husky is on his own, but his songs are about the same:
"I don't want to be beautiful,
I don't want to be rich.
I want to be an assault rifle shooting at faces…"
Shooting at faces, meaning conveying the message, is more important than being beautiful and rich.
Vasily Vakulenko (Basta), rapper: "For me, rap is street music. The texts must have some kind of foundation. If a person is not responsible for their words, then all this does not make sense".
Miron Fyodorov (Oxxxymiron), rapper: "I think Russian rap has blossomed. There are things I like and don't like, but it's diverse. It suits every taste".
Denis Grigoriev (Karandash), rapper: "We'll see in tens of years if it's about modern poetry. If current artists etch their names into history, then it is. If we fall into oblivion and turn out washed up, just a modern phenomenon, which I actually doubt, then we'll see, it will be clear".
It's up to everybody to choose their attitude to this phenomenon. It's neither black nor white, but it's impossible to ignore millions of hours of audio recordings on the Internet, which are being constantly replenished.
Anton Lyadov, Viktoria Filatova, Evgeny Reshetnev, Vsevolod Sychev, for Vesti — News of the Week