Rap in Russia: The new standard for democracy?

Written by Joshua Grenzsund

Tuesday, 04 March 2008

Russia's music scene is seeing a wave of influence from the United States' rap music industry. World Writer Joshua Grenzsund explores the influence rap music has on bringing ideas of freedom and democracy to Russia. This past November, Antonio Maria Costa — director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime — criticized musician Amy Winehouse for contributing to international drug problems by glamorizing drugs. If the U.N. has the time and insight to focus on the influence of Western music in the world, they should look at how it actually serves their ostensible interests of freedom and democracy. The next music-related announcement they make should have something to do with the inroads that music paves into even the most stolid tyrannical regimes — like rap in Russia. There may not be democracy or free elections in Russia thanks to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his hordes of 40-somethings who have a stranglehold on the neo-Soviet government, but a growing number of young artists and everyday youth are taking up a decidedly Western medium — rap music. Many in this new generation were not even born in the U.S.S.R., which broke up in 1991, and though they engage rap and hip-hop in a decidedly Russian style, the genre has within it the roots of social change that even Putin might not be able to control. Radical social change at the hands of Western music has happened in Russia before. When Soviet counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s gravitated toward Western-style music like Motown, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix; the music not only influenced inspired Russian musicians and trends in style, but was also considered as having played a decisive role in the Soviet collapse. The circulation of Western thought — along with albums, clothing and concert ticket sales — amplified the capitalist black market and eventually helped undermine communist ideology. At the same time the social force of rock music peaked in the decidedly analog world of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s' rap music from the United States was making its first inroads behind the Iron Curtain. With the proliferation of the Internet and digital music production capabilities in the late ‘90s and into the ‘00s, the crosscurrent of hip-hop culture between Russia and the West has seen both an explosion of United States artists like 50 Cent and Beyoncé performing to sold-out shows in Russia while professional and amateur Russian acts produce their own singles and albums. This popularity is apparent not only in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, but far into the oblasts, republics and autonomous regions. The recently published Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture places the recognizable inauguration of hip hop in New York City in the early 1970s. Zulu Nation is credited with being the most important original hip-hop crew and the impetus for its formation was one of exchanging weapons for lyrics and violence for a competition of musical skill. Although hip hop has since been fractured among political rap, apolitical escapist rap and club and gangster hip hop that glamorizes violence and drugs, all of these have within them the particular force of artistic momentum that finds its inspiration and rhythm of expression in a freedom and individuality that is corrosive to hegemonic authority. Within Russia there are thousands of hip hop and rap groups who upload new tracks and singles to file sharing sites and YouTube as well as forums, Web sites and Internet radio channels dedicated to Russian rap and hip hop. This upsurge represents a third wave of Russian rap — the latest in a drive to create and share that has been going on for about two decades. Whether rap can really be Russian is similar to the debate in the U.S. as to whether white rappers are anything more than posers and thieves of cultural currency. But forum entries on Hip-Hip.ru going as far back as 2000 discuss this question and many fans and artists conclude that the freedom embodied by rap music is something very central to their projects of social expression and hope to be a part of shaping Russia in the 21st century. The biggest names in Russian hip hop emulate a US west coast style of rap and are very commercialized. Timati — a international transplant who has moved back and forth between Moscow and Los Angeles — and Seryoga epitomize the mixture of gangster rap and tracks meant for club play. Timati’s hit “V Klube” ("In the Club") is a current big hit, as is Seryoga’s “King Ring ” which is being used in the video game "Grand Theft Auto 4." Other examples of this style of hip hop are Legalize and De Maar. The more hardcore gangster rap with darker overtones and more overt references to drugs, violence and guns are represented by more independent groups whose recordings and videos are generally less produced, though this tough image fits with Russian machismo. Some of the more notable artists are Kasta, Yujnie Krai, Mafyo and Triada. Generally, more Russian instrumentation and visual elements are integrated by these artists, despite still solidly imitating U.S. rap. Other notable subgenres include lighthearted rap epitomized by Семён and Brate Ulibaete, party rap that moves into more poetic sentiments by acts like Rayon Moey Mechty, St1m, UG, Detsl and other work by Seryoga. A last, but very important aspect to Russian rap is the small and fairly hard-to-find representation of women rap artists. Rena, Gidroponka and Amira are three of them. A review of this breadth of Russian rap reveals both the ways in which rap has infiltrated every level of Russian social life and the ways in which it may help bring about future social change. The appetite and capacity for rap and western ideals, in all its various forms, is something that Minister Putin and President-elect Dmitry Medvedev will have to work to keep contained within their vision for Russia’s identity and future. If they don’t, it will help catalyze new change in Putin’s Russia as much as it did in Soviet Russia. In the mean time, if Western nations want to embrace Russia in democracy, all they have to do is tune in to the newest Russian rap.