(Photo: Sergei Petrov/ITAR-TASS News Agency/Alamy)Īs Morgenshtern noted in a prerelease hype post for “12,” international sanctions and draconian Russian-government restrictions have sent artists adrift. Singer and hip hop artist Oxxxymiron in 2018. No longer is open critique limited to outsider artists like IC3PEAK, whose controversial 2020 single “Boo Hoo” might have nearly landed the experimental duo in jail. With Morgenshtern and Oxxxymiron openly on allied sides for the first time, the historic wall between Russia’s more subversive, government-critical music scene and the country’s more popular Top 40 apolitical mainstream may be eroding. The dissident rapper hosted a concert in Istanbul on Tuesday, one of first of several planned Russians Against War shows, with the goal of raising money for Ukrainian refugees. Known for narrative-driven and socially conscious tracks like “Who killed Mark?” Oxxxymiron has opposed the war since its beginning, canceling Russian shows in protest. Some, like Oxxxymiron, are established opponents to Putin’s government. It’s a change for a scene that has often walked a delicate balancing act between being critical of the government and retaining the ability to perform publicly. “I flew away as soon as I bought a house.”Ī handful of other prominent Russian rappers have been slowly but steadily voicing their opposition to the war. “Everything in Russia is locked up,” he raps coyly. Morgenshtern’s conversion to full-throated government critic, however, is a departure from the more restrained frustration of “Why?” Reading the room, the rapper bounced to Dubai, where he released his blistering single “Why?” as a defense of his colorful lifestyle choices and a knock against the Russian rap scene. Despite cautious walk backs and efforts to mend relations with veterans, the state announced an investigation against him for allegedly using his popular Instagram to traffic drugs. In a summer 2021 YouTube interview with former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, the rapper flippantly questioned the large role that Victory Day parades celebrating the end of World War II play in Russian society. “Bosses never gave a fuck.”īorn Alisher Tagirovich Valeyev to a Russian-Bashkir family in the southern city of Ufa, Morgenshtern is no stranger to controversy. “The big bosses will send to the slaughterhouse,” Morgenshtern raps, in a likely nod to the already high casualty rates Russian forces are suffering in Ukraine. It could suggest that others may soon follow suit, and a handful of luminaries have already begun. For the Dubai-based Morgenshtern, who was Spotify’s top artist in Russia in 2021, it is a serious broadside in what has been a slow but steady increasing frustration with the Kremlin. “12,” named in honor of the rapper’s younger brother’s birthday, is the first serious missive from a normally apolitical Russian rapper against the war. Putin’s media clampdown means she will not be heard on Russian airwaves any time soon - she may be the Ukrainian voice most widely encountered by Morgenshtern’s millions of die-hard Russian fans on YouTube. It’s the voice of a Ukrainian woman, the mother of rap producer and longtime Morgenshtern collaborator Palagin, who endured Russian strikes in Odesa. “Right now we are sitting in the cellar, we have prepared a bomb shelter.” “My dear son, well yes, here, right here, in the morning the roof was almost blown away,” she says with a calm urgency. In fact, the surprise release of “12,” from Russian rapper Morgenshtern, is revolutionary.Īs the song wraps, a woman’s voice rises above the fray, an angry mob surrounding the rapper, hands banging on the Bentley. This might look like just another hip-hop video.