Hip hop, which appeared in America in the 1970s, has long since become a worldwide phenomenon adapting and evolving in each new environment. Central Asia is no exception, as a quick overview of rap music from the region reveals.

This article was originally published on Novastan’s German website in 2018.

According to Spotify, hip hop is the most popular music genre in the world. Although most of Central Asia is not yet covered by the Swedish streaming service, it does have very active and increasingly professional rap scenes. Some of these even enjoy great commercial success.

This is especially true for Kazakhstan, home to the largest music industry in the region. Kyrgyz rap has equally found its way to the forefront of local pop culture. In Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, state control over the cultural sector is stronger, pushing local rap scenes either into conformity or to the margins.

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Central Asia’s widespread multilingualism is reflected in its rap. Russian-speaking artists still have the largest audience, yet most Central Asian rappers favour their national languages. But Central Asia’s rap scenes also differ in terms of their themes and social setting.

As an entry point, here are ten remarkable songs from all five Central Asian countries.

1.     Skriptonit – Style (Kazakhstan/Russia, 2015)

“One brother to my left, one to my right, I don’t call this “koresh” [Russian slang for a close friend] – because I’m from Pavlodar, if you remember”

With his atmospheric flow and lyrics from the world of a small town in northern Kazakhstan, Skriptonit – a stage name for the 27-year-old Ádil Jálelov – has long been one of the most popular rappers in Russia. But he likes to call his music “Kazakhstan rap”: “I am lucky that I come from Kazakhstan. I had little to do with Russian rappers and I don’t echo them,” he said in an interview with Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak.

Skriptonit’s texts revolve around his experiences as a child and teenager in Kazakhstan’s Northern Pavlodar region. In Styl’, from his first album Dom s normalnimi yavleniyamy (“House of Normal Appearances”, an allusion to the Russian title of the US film A haunted House), he offers a portrait of his neighbourhood, “stinking of grass mixed with Hugo [Hugo Boss perfume]”.

Skriptonit achieved his breakthrough in 2013 with VBVVCTND (short for “Choice without options, all you gave us”). The words “look into the television, there you are like Alice in Wonderland” could be the song’s slogan. By signing a contract with the Russian label Gazgolder and moving to Moscow, he managed to jump down the rabbit hole.

2.     Baller – Armandar oryndalady (Kazakhstan, 2017)

“Dreams come true, if the goal is clear, if you have patience and faith”

If Skriptonit represents North Kazakh rap, Baller stands for the Southern side, or Shymside, as he would say himself. The 24-year-old artist comes from Shymkent, dubbed the “Texas of Kazakhstan” by Texas Monthly. His career began in 2008 when he became a member of the Shymkent label 11-Block. Unsurprisingly, one of his early pieces is dedicated to his hometown.

Baller raps mostly in Kazakh but also plays with Russian and English vocabulary in his lyrics, using the code-switching that is already common in rap. Today, he is one of the most popular rappers in Kazakhstan and even won the prize for best hip hop project at the Eurasian Music Awards 2017. Dreams come true, as he titled this song.

3.     Zamanbap – Ene Til (Kyrgyzstan, 2015)

“This piece belongs to me, to my mother, to all who understand it, to you…”

Two years ago, the Bishkek group Zamanbap (“Modern” in Kyrgyz) landed a minor hit with Ene til (“Mother tongue”), an ode to the Kyrgyz language. The three rappers Begish, Bayastan and Casper merge traditional Kyrgyz motifs with hip hop and a text calling for the appreciation of the Kyrgyz language.

Zamanbap’s musicians have all been in business for a good ten years and are now at the forefront of the rising Kyrgyz-language rap scene. Together with their Russian-speaking colleagues from Troeraznikh (“three different ones”), they recorded the theme song of the popular comedy series Jarayt City.

Zamanbap’s music is not just about using the Kyrgyz language, as the group emphasises in interviews: “Our mentality is not based on smoking weed and drinking alcohol etc., we write our tracks very differently than in America and other countries. This is our Kyrgyz rap”, Bayastan said in an interview with the channel Mosgi na Vynos. It’s family-friendly, completely in the sense of finding a Kyrgyz identity.

4.     7gen – 1916 (Kyrgyzstan, 2015)

“Under one sky, one unity, one way, in front of one tunduk, North and South be one!”

Kyrgyz-speaking rapper 7gen (Jetigen) raps predominantly about Kyrgyzstan, too. The song 1916 revolves around the uprisings of the inhabitants of Russian Central Asia against their entry into the First World War. This event, known as “urkun” (exodus) in Kyrgyz, was violently suppressed and led thousands of Kyrgyz into exile in China or Afghanistan, among other places. 2016 marked the 100th anniversary of the event – an opportunity to call on the Kyrgyz to unite beyond regional divisions.

The young rapper and graduate of the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University is the seventh child in his family and was also born in the seventh month of the year, the source of his stage name. He works with the production company 45 TV, one of the two strongholds of hip hop in Kyrgyzstan with TopTash.

7gen’s lyrics offer a wealth of references to Kyrgyzstan’s self-image: “My fatherland, my country is Kyrgyzstan/ If I look up to the sky, the stars give me hope,” says the song Dayar Bol (“Be Ready”), which opens the album Kyrgyz bol (“Be Kyrgyz”) and addresses the social injustices and divisions of society.

5.     Shoxrux – Hayolimdasan (Uzbekistan, 2005)

“Every day, my love / Every night, my love, / You are always in my dreams, my love”

Shoxrux almost belongs to the senior generation of Central Asian rappers. He first gained notoriety in Uzbekistan in 2004 with a video clip that was distributed on television. The two albums Balandda (“In the heights”) and Bolaligim (“My Youth”) followed, before he took a break in 2007. The love song Hayolimdasan (“You are in my dreams”) is the 7th track on Balandda.

For the past few years, the now 31-year-old artist has been active again. Breaches of social taboos, often associated with rap, are hardly ever found in his songs. On his Instagram profile, Shoxrux first introduces himself as a member of the ruling “Liberal Democratic” party of Uzbekistan.

6.     Konsta – Blabla (Uzbekistan, 2017)

“I woke up early in a bar, and I understood there is no paradise here”

Konsta is stylistically more akin to contemporary US rap than to traditional Uzbek music. The young artist from Guliston began his musical career in 2009 as a student. He wrote his first track T.B.U.K.K. in Russian. Since then, he has refined his art between his stays in Moscow and Uzbekistan and writes most of his songs in Uzbek.

Konsta’s video BlaBla was released shortly before the end of 2017. Against the backdrop of the Azerbaijani capital Baku, it talks about his artistic career and the difficulties he has in making his way abroad. “If you want to make it here, you need good contacts. Whoever looks for work here does it again and again,” he says a little further in the lyrics. Possibly an allusion to the almost two million Uzbeks who earn their money in Russia.

7.     Master Ismail/ M.One – Assalom Alaykum (Tajikistan, 2017)

“I make Tajik rap like Tupac”

Master Ismail has been rapping since 1999 and is one of Tajikistan’s most famous rappers. He built his career between Tajikistan and Russia, where he spent two to six months every year. His songs are written partly in Russian and partly in Tajik.

At the beginning of the 2010s, Asia Plus counted Master Ismail among the regime-critical rappers in Tajikistan. In the Russian-language piece Goodbye Rahmon, for example, he focused on corruption and the poor economic situation that drives many young Tajiks abroad. Like many of his colleagues, however, pressure from the authorities led him to a U-turn. As a result, in his more recent works, he has polished the production but the lyrics have lost their political sharpness.

In Assalom Alaykum, with a greeting “to all at home and abroad,” Master Ismail introduces another patriotic song about his homeland, “watan” in Tajik, a word he repeats like a leitmotif. No matter how much he has travelled around, the rapper is always drawn back to Tajikistan, and more precisely to Dushanbe, the “best city in the world”, as he points out in Ponedelnik (“Monday” in Russian, an allusion to the meaning of ‘Dushanbe’ in Tajik).

8.     Bacha84 – Tok’i Todshiki (Tajikistan, 2012)

“Tok’i is the secret”

Bachtior Kosimov’s stage name Bacha84 is derived from his place of residence, the microdistrict no 84 in Dushanbe. The 29-year-old artist began his music career in 2002 with a piece he sang for KVN, a comedy competition dating back to Soviet times. As he told VIPZoneOnline in an interview, his mother, who worked for an international organisation, sparked his interest in rap.

Bacha is best known for his love songs. Pieces like In oschiki Todschiki (“This is Being in Love”) or Dili Dewona (“Crazy Heart”) were played in all of the country’s taxis in their day. In Tok’i Todshiki (“Tajik Tok’i”, referring to the tok’i, a traditional Tajik skullcap) he tells the listener how much he is attached to his tok’i, which he would not take off even if Jennifer Lopez asked him to. In addition to the obligatory patriotic pieces, Bacha84 touches on social themes, and a social café recently opened in Dushanbe bears the name of his piece Dar jak samin (on one world).

9.     Godek, Vagrant, Zumer & BlackShadow – Demir Tiken (Turkmenistan, 2012)

“I grew up very fast, time has taught me, I learnt courage and zeal”

Turkmenistan’s rap scene is without doubt the least known in Central Asia. Hip hop culture fits badly into the stereotypical image of an all-powerful totalitarian state. A “Khan” wrote on the now inactive citizen media NewEurasia a few years ago: “The outside world thinks we Turkmen live in constant fear of our government. Not quite, many of us don’t even realize that something is wrong. No, mostly we are just bored … The young generation really has nothing to do. That’s why they love hip hop.”

According to Khan, Turkmen hip hop can be traced back to 2000. But it wasn’t until Zumer that the scene really took off. The rapper, who studied at a Turkish university and spends a lot of time in Turkey, is considered the father of Turkmen rap. With his group Darkroom Posse, he represents the Turkmen West Side, or Balkan Side.

Zumer’s hometown Turkmenbashi is the subject of the song Demir Tiken (“Barbed Wire”), a thoughtful piece about youth on the streets of the “dark paradise”, as he calls the city. “My legs are caught in this barbed wire” – a metaphor for the lessons of the street.

10.     Ulykazy – Ekskurs (Turkmenistan, 2015)

“I don’t remember how many women I had, sometimes I meet one of them on the street, and life reminds me of the past”

Turkmen rap is developing not only in Turkmenbashi and Ashgabat but also abroad. This is especially true in Turkey, which is linguistically close and which Turkmen citizens can enter without a visa. There are also local rap communities and concerts in Turkmen in Russia.

In Eskurs, the rapper Ulykazy, who like Zumer is from Turkmenbashi and born in 1988, gives listeners an excursion through his love life. He recorded his clip abroad, too, in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

Bonus Track: Jokeasses – ZYN ZYN (Kazakhstan, 2017)

“White T-shirt, cool glasses…”

Zyn Zyn by Youtuber collective Jokeasses from Almaty (Kazakhstan) breaks records. The song attracted over 14 million views on YouTube in three months. Written in a mixture of Kazakh and Russian, interspersed with anglicisms and name-dropping from pop culture, (“Here and There, Tom & Jerry, Katy Perry, Jim Carrey”) it’s a colourful rap parody, and a real catchy tune…

Florian Coppenrath

Translated by Magnus Obermann

The post Central Asian rap in 10 tracks appeared first on Novastan English.

Prior to his resignation as president of Kyrgyzstan on 15 October, Sooronbay Jeenbekov had announced an agreement with Russia on the railroad project between China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

This article was originally published on Novastan’s French website.

In an interview with the radio station “Birinchi Radio” on 19 September, barely a month before his resignation, President Jeenbekov had confirmed Russia’s participation in the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railroad project. “We have reached an agreement at the highest level with Russia on its participation in this project. Active negotiations are currently underway between China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Russia, in the format of three plus one,” the then president said.

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Accordingly, Russia is to be part of any further negotiations on the railroad corridor. This could advance the 25-year-old project, especially as the coronavirus pandemic seems to be giving it new momentum. The corridor would allow for goods to be transported from China to Europe more quickly.

On 25 November 2019, the Russian news agency Regnum had already reported that Russia was politically interested in the project and had already invested the equivalent of three million US dollars. Russia is even considering direct financing of, for example, the construction of the necessary infrastructure.

No agreement over Kyrgyz route

The railroad corridor China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan aims to connect Chinese railways with the Uzbek capital Tashkent. This rail link would also be an opportunity for greater connection to the rest of the world for Central Asian networks.

The route has varied considerably over the years but now seems at least partially settled, as reported on the former website of Kyrgyzstan’s national railway service. It begins in Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang, the Uyghur Autonomous Region, and runs for about 165 km to the Torugart Pass. This part of the line is already in place but goods arriving in Kyrgyzstan then cross the country in lorries, as there is no railway on the Kyrgyz side of the pass.

A section of about 250 km to the west to the Fergana Valley in Uzbekistan has not yet been built. Kyrgyzstan and China are having difficulties agreeing on the exact route over the Kyrgyz territory. According to current plans, the route would pass through the cities of Ösgön and Kara-Suu, north of Osh, before finally reaching Uzbekistan.

China seeks access to Uzbekistan’s oil fields

China, the initiator of the project, seeks to expand the Central Asian railway infrastructure to Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and Europe in the long term. In the short term, the construction of the line would also give China better access to the Mingbuloq oild field in Uzbekistan.

As Bruce Pannier reported in 2017 in an article for Radio Free Europe, the Mingbuloq production site was only opened when the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed an agreement to develop the oil field in October 2008. CNPC estimates that there are more than 30 million tons of oil in the region and that Mingbuloq could produce around 4000 barrels per day in the long run. Although this is far below China’s daily consumption, it could be extracted very close to China’s territory.

A much-delayed project

The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railroad project was originally launched 25 years ago, a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it was not implemented until October 2020. The reasons for this are manifold.

The first technical problem lies in the gauge of the tracks. The railroads in Kyrgyzstan uses a gauge of 1.52 metres, against 1.435 metres in China. Failure to reach agreement would require expensive re-gauging during the journey.

Kyrgyzstan has delayed the project several times, too. As Bruce Pannier points out in another article for Radio Free Europe, Kyrgyzstan is reluctant to do its part of the work for financial and geographical reasons. In 2017, Kyrgyzstan’s then President Almazbek Atambayev declared that there was no need for a railroad line that did not stop in Kyrgyzstan. At the same time, he instead proposed a longer route that would connect smaller cities in the north of the country. Including tunnels and bridges, this connection would increase the overall costs by 1.5 billion US dollars (£1.1 billion), an unreasonable sum given the current budget of 1.3 billion dollars (£990 million), mainly paid for by China. Russia’s entry could enable renegotiations in favour of Kyrgyzstan.

As the Kyrgyz news portal Times of Central Asia points out, despite all efforts to ensure cooperation between governments, the various border conflicts since 2017 have also been a further obstacle to development.

Uncertain Russian interests

In view of the disagreement among the three partners, it is not clear to what extent the entry of a fourth country can revive the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railroad project.

Above all, one question remains: why would Russia contribute its expertise and resources if it does not seem to derive any direct economic benefit from the project? As an alternative route to Beijing, the project could provide strong competition to Russia’s current monopoly for transit traffic of Chinese freight towards Europe.

Clément Clerc-Dubois
Novastan.org

Translated by Magnus Obermann

The post Russia commits to railroad corridor China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan appeared first on Novastan English.

A new parliament was elected in Kyrgyzstan on 4 October. Almost all election winners are parties loyal to the government. As of the following day, several parties do not recognize the results, and thousands protest against fraudulent elections.

This article was originally published on Novastan’s German version.

“The Kazakh are probably once more shocked looking at Kyrgyz Twitter,” writes political commentator Azim Azimov on the microblogging service. He is alluding to how openly citizens in Kyrgyzstan express their political opinions compared to their northern neighbours. In fact, on the day after the parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan, anger and sadness reign in the local segment of social media, where the majority of users are critical of the government.  

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From the perspective of the opposition, the situation has materialized as was feared. According to the preliminary election results, the Birimdik party emerged as the winner with just under 25 % of the vote. Birimdik is considered the successor to the fragmented governing party SDPK.

Shortly behind them comes the party Mekenim Kyrgyzstan (“My Homeland Kyrgyzstan”), which is usually associated with the former customs officer Rayimbek Matraimov. According to international journalistic research, Rayimbek Matraimov’s involvement in smuggling and corruption networks makes him one of the most influential people in the country.

Kyrgyzstan and Bütün Kyrgyzstan (“United Kyrgyzstan”) also make it into parliament, respectively with just under 9% and a solid 7%. The Kyrgyzstan party is thus the only party from the previous legislative period to make it back into parliament. It is usually associated with the large business holding company Ayu and is considered loyal to the government.

After several attempts, the Bütün Kyrgyzstan party made it into parliament for the first time, identifying itself as an opposition party in the run-up to the elections. 

To enter parliament, parties must obtain at least 7% of the vote and 0.7% in each of Kyrgyzstan’s seven regions.

A barely representative parliament

As the Kyrgyz online media Kloop.kg reports, Birimdik, Mekenim Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyzstan have spent more money in the election campaign than all other parties combined. Bütün Kyrgyzstan, on the other hand, made a disproportionately large profit from relatively low investments, drawing on a well-organized voter base and led by the political veteran Adakhan Madumarov.

The remaining 12 parties failed to enter parliament because of the 7% blocking clause. It was particularly close for Mekenchil which is only 0.04% away from entering parliament. Respublika, whose presidential candidate Ömürbek Babanov had received more than 30 percent of the votes in the elections in 2017, is at just under 6%. Ata Meken (“Fatherland”), a long-standing opposition party, managed just over four percent. 1.82% of voters voted “against all”, with an average turnout of 56.2%.

This means that a slightly smaller proportion of eligible voters took part in the election than five years ago. According to Deputy Prime Minister Akram Madumarov, almost half a million citizens were unable to vote because they did not register their biometric data. Since 2015, a biometric recognition system has been used in elections in Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, because of the coronavirus pandemic, people with high temperatures were not allowed to enter polling stations until after 6 pm.

In addition to a relatively low voter turnout, this time the 7% blocking clause excludes a particularly high percentage of votes. The four elected parties together hold only just over 65 % of the vote. Five years ago the figure was just under 90%. “Those in power have created a ticking time bomb, so many votes have remained on the streets,” political activist Nursultan Akylbek commented on Twitter.

Protests against election fraud

On the evening of elections, several opposition parties declared they did not recognise the results. The parties Reforma, Chong Kazat, Ordo, Yyman Nuru and Meken Yntymagy joined forces in calling for a demonstration. According to Kloop.kg, over 2000 people gathered in Ala-Too Square in the capital Bishkek on Monday afternoon. Representatives of other parties such as Respublika, Ata Meken, Bütün Kyrgyzstan and Mekenchil also joined the protest. Further demonstrations are taking place in the cities of Talas and Naryn.

“As you know, there can be no elections in Kyrgyzstan without breaking the rules. This election will probably not be an exception either”, wrote Kloop.kg at the beginning of election day. The independent media company was involved in documenting violations of the electoral law with 120 election observers. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was represented at the election with only a small observer mission as the 350 short-term observers originally planned could not enter the country because of the coronavirus pandemic.

While biometric voter recognition makes traditional forms of organised electoral fraud such as carousel voting and ballot stuffing much more difficult, this year numerous indications of vote buying by individual parties were observed. Outside some polling stations, for example, there were people keeping lists of voters supposed to vote for a given party. Some of these people also had face masks with certain characteristics. In other cases, voters were filmed receiving money after the vote.

Several violations of the secrecy of the ballot were observed as well: polling station staff stood too close to the ballot box or even looked over the shoulders of voters in the voting booth. In other cases, voters illegally photographed their ballot papers.

Finally, even before the election, the use of the so-called “Forma-2” form, through which voters can request to vote at a polling station other than their registered address, was criticized. According to critics, parties could use such applications to have their voters vote in other regions and thus make it through the regional blocking clause of 0.7%. Cases of collective voter transport suggest such a practice.

A “very dirty” election

“Especially in the city of Osh the election was very dirty. I say it quite openly. What kind of election rigging has not been shown in social media since this morning,” even Iskender Matraimov of Mekenim Kyrgyzstan explained the evening of the election. He added that his party should have received significantly more votes. Party leader Mirlan Bakirov nevertheless accepted the results.

Nearly 100 different complaints were received by the election commission, but according to its representative Tynchtyk Shaynazarov, they have no influence on the election results. “However, as far as individual parties or individual candidates are concerned, their illegal activities may have consequences. They can also be excluded from the election,” he added.

The anger of the protesters is now directed on the one hand against the government and parties, on the other against those who sold their vote. “These elections are legitimate. Absolutely from the people. Nobody has forced a million people to accept money. This is a stupid and irresponsible behavior of adult citizens. Not Raim [Rayimbek Matraimov, editor’s note] and not Birimdik are guilty, but the citizens themselves,” declared political expert Azim Azimov on Twitter in the evening.

Other observers, however, also point out that economic conditions and political disinterest can explain the sale of votes: “I don’t know how to blame the poor old people who receive 2000 som (about 21 euros) pension. They have very little left to live, they don’t believe the authorities and sell their vote for a monthly pension,” writes Twitter user Aizada Marat, for example.

Bektur Iskender, co-founder of Kloop.kg, also identifies economic causes for the election rigging. “In fact, our main problem remains poverty. If the people in Kyrgyzstan weren’t so poor, they wouldn’t sell so many votes for so little money,” he explained on election night. 

The glass of democracy half full or half empty?

“Although candidates could generally campaign freely, there were a number of concerns, including reports of candidate intimidation and disruption of campaign events,” writes the OSCE in a press statement. Thus, structural political and economic problems remain, but on the other hand, an increased focus on party programs as well as the ongoing protest movement point to a growing political awareness. In this way, a new activist party like Reforma was able to gather more than 30,000 votes in its election debut. “We have a protest electorate, it is just spread incredibly wide between numerous parties,” Bektur Iskender said.

The final election results will be announced within 20 days, once ballots have been counted manually and the complaints have been taken into account. Much may still happen between now and then, especially in the light of the protests that are beginning, sometimes with calls for new elections. Even Mekenchil could still make it to parliament as the fifth party.

If the current election result is retained, the political status quo will prevail for the time being, although a maximum of 47 members of the outgoing parliament may be given a new mandate. But it is also still open how the relationship between the four parties in parliament will develop. Birimdik and Mekenim Kyrgyzstan in particular, as two different poles of power, could ultimately find themselves in a competitive relationship.

Florian Coppenrath
Co-founder

Translated by Magnus Obermann

The post Kyrgyzstan: governing party wins “dirty” parliamentary elections appeared first on Novastan English.