Putin worries that listening to rap music is "a path to the degradation of the nation"

Alexandra Hutzle
Newsweek
Sat, 15 Dec 2018 22:07 UTC

© Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin applauds during the concert marking the 80th anniversary of Soviet and Russian conductor Yuri Temirkanov at Saint Petersburg Conservatory on December 15, 2018 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to devise a plan of controlling rap as the music genre becomes more popular with his country's youth.

According to the Associated Press, during a meeting with Russian cultural advisers on Saturday Putin said that rap music is "based on three pillars: sex, drugs and protest."

He has a history of suppressing protests. But he stated that his biggest issue with the music is themes of drug use and abuse, noting to his advisers that listening to rap is "a path to the degradation of the nation." The genre's "drug propaganda" is worse than the expletives used, Putin said.

Comment: No right-thinking person would find anything to argue with there. Besides, it wasn't so long ago that great bastion of democracy - the USA - banned music for similar reasons:

The 1978 Supreme Court case FCC v. Pacifica Foundation established that the FCC had the power to regulate the broadcast of content considered "indecent" on terrestrial radio and television.

In 1985, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), founded by Tipper Gore, published the "Filthy Fifteen"-a list of fifteen songs it deemed to be the most objectionable due to their references to drugs and alcohol, sexual acts, violence, or "occult" activities.

The comments came amid a recent crackdown on contemporary Russian musicians. Last month the rapper Husky was arrested after he put on an impromptu performance after his concert was shut down in Krasnodar, Russia.

Husky's music videos have been viewed by over 6 million people and his lyrics address poverty, corruption and police brutality. When he was being arrested, the rapper told his fans: "I will sing my music, the most honest music!" Husky was originally given a 12-day sentence but it was later cancelled the court and he was released.

Along with Husky, two other contemporary artists have been getting shut out of venues as club owners have been pressured to not let them perform. The duo group called IC3PEAK was on a Russia-wide tour when six of their 11 shows were cancelled.

One of the members of IC3PEAK told the Associated Press that while they haven't received any "official statements" telling them not to perform, being turned away by venues and owners "are just ratty methods of fighting against art."

Another rapper, called Gone.Fludd, recently announced that two concerts were being cancelled. The reason behind it was pressure from "every police agency you can imagine," they said. And hip hop artist Allj cancelled a performance after getting violent threats.

Comment: Finally, three-quarters into Newsweek's scare-piece we get this:

During his meeting with advisers on Saturday, Putin noted that banning rappers from performing would only increase their popularity. Plus, the crackdown evoked a Soviet-era censorship of music and art. And much of the television and cable services in Russia are still state-owned and operated.

The Russian leader added that if it is "impossible" to stop rap music and its growing popularity all together, then government officials "must lead it and direct it."

Comment: Newsweek is fulfilling its Russian spin duties while it can. Putin has expressed concern for the social effects of rap music, but has never considered censorship.

Putin: Drug content in rap songs is concerning, but banning will only make things worse

Banning rappers is a bad idea, and the state should fight drug culture rather than youth culture, Vladimir Putin has said, weighing in on the scandal over some Russian rap gigs, canceled for their links to narcotics and violence.

The Russian president on Saturday warned against attempts to ban and prosecute rappers, describing such measures as "the least effective, the worst ones anyone could come up with."

"The effect of them would be opposite to the desired one," Putin said.

The Russian Parliament has already found in favor of rappers' right to free speech:

Musicians have every right to use obscenities for self-expression and must be allowed to swear from stage if their shows have proper age restrictions, the deputy head of the Russian Parliament's information committee said.

"People go to concerts, already knowing what to expect there. They're not going blindly. This is art. He (the artist) sees thing this way," Andrey Svintsov from nationalist Liberal Democratic Party said about the use of foul language by some musicians.

"If you do not like it then just don't go there. That's it," he added.

RT reports on attempts to find a compromise between the artists and the government.

Despite rap being the most commercially viable youth musical genre in the country, its proponents frequently face last-minute gig cancellations while touring outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, often on the pretext of advertising drug use, obscene language or the alleged threat of violence. Things came to a head last month after provocative performer Husky was stopped from taking to the stage in Krasnodar, then arrested for 12 days when he performed an impromptu gig on the boot of a car outside the venue. Both Moscow officials and civil rights organizations protested, and the rapper was released, but the issue begs for a resolution.

[...]

There were tangents, discussions of the misuse of hate speech legislation, poems and skits read by the participants without a backing track, but mostly all the talking heads delivered their pieces, with little spontaneous engagement between the participants.

Finally, as he rubbed his face red with growing frustration Zhigan, most notorious for his car theft and robbery convictions for which he served time, snapped.

"We are having a conversation about nothing here," he said, before quickly advertising the release of his upcoming film, and making a dramatic exit. "We can spend another 20 years talking about this, bro," he said to Ptaha, tapping him on the shoulder

Two hours in, and the meeting wrapped up, still no concrete proposals on the table. But while the cringe factor was high, and legislative changes unlikely, the mere fact that the high-profile meeting took place sends a signal (particularly to regional officials) that the government cares, and that rappers won't be made into pariahs on whom social ills are blamed. And if the price to pay for progress is sitting three feet from a senior policeman after writing odes to multiple ways to break the law, then this could be a deal worth striking even for the true non-conformists.

Completely overlooked by the Western media's framing of this discussion in Russia as one of 'an authoritarian crackdown' is the evidence that American rap music was also 'guided' - though towards degradation...

Fight the Power: The Secret Meeting that Changed Rap Music and Destroyed a Generation