Political raps in Belarus

Rap music is much of a mainstream in the US, Germany, Poland and many other countries. For some reason, Belarus was lagging behind, with rock being a dominant style of youth protests. There are so many fantastic outfits singing heavy songs of cherished Belarusian revolution – N.R.M., Krok, Krama, Novaje Nieba, Tavaryš Maŭzer and many others. No surprise that “Songs of Liberty,” a revolutionary compilation, was much heavier than the Ukrainian albums sold on Kiev’s Maidan.

However, hip-hop is slowly coming to our good old little “outpost of tyranny.” The first truly Belarusan rap act is Čyrvonym pa Biełamu (ČPB), an enigmatic crew of a rapper hiding under a nickname Kroŭ (means “Blood” in Belarusian). ČPB do not give gigs – at least, not in Belarus where they could easily be arrested for highly provocative anti-Lukashenko lyrics.

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hip-hop is slowly coming to our good old little “outpost of tyranny”

ČPB released two albums, which can be downloaded from their official website. Kroŭ is now working on his solo album which is planned as a certain encyclopedia of raps, as Kroŭ says, and will feature different rap subgenres. The plaque is designed as apolitical, but the rapper is not planning to deviate from his favorite topic of struggle for independence. So Kroŭ says the ČPB is gonna release the third album and dedicate it to all protestors who fought for Belarus’ freedom.

The rapper is gonna cooperate with Polish DJ’s, and ČPB itself is changing – the crew has increased. Now they have one more master of ceremonies (MC) and a new DJ. The band is also to change name. Still it is unknown how they will call themselves, but Kroŭ promises ČPB will perform on Basovišča-2006, the largest festival of Belarusian music conducted each year in Eastern Poland. The working title of the upcoming third album is “Bloody March.”

Of course, hip-hop has become too commercialized and its true rebel feeling is almost lost. And yet, there is a whole scene of social raps in Poland, Germany. In America, rappers often touch upon the topics of social injustice, race issues, human rights, and life in the ghetto. Rap is very often political, but Belarusian rappers before ČPB appeared had resorted to superficial topics of love and hatred, parties and nothing much else. This genuinely surprised me.

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hip-hop has become too commercialized and its true rebel feeling is almost lost

And moreover, these infantile rap acts were rhyming almost exclusively in Russian. One of possible explanations of this phenomenon is that they looked up to their icons from Russia – Detsl, Kasta, etc. Russian raps, in fact, is often very hardcore and straightforward about the political situation in the country. But Belarusian Russian-rhymers maybe just did not have the guts. So such rockers as Novaje Nieba and Aleś Pamidoraŭ had to leap into the style which was not quite theirs. And to my surprise, they came up with very decent rap tracks.

I hope that ČPB has opened the Pandora box and socially conscious rap will finally show up in Belarus. There are some good indicators of this happening – Imperator and Belarusian Lyceum recently recorded very good pieces which are not devoid of good blend of hip-hop beats and challenging lyrics.