A Future for Ukrainian Music?

Half three of our Kharkiv-based correspondent, Ilya Kovalenko’s deep dive into the Ukrainian rap (and associated) scene…

Ukrainian music is actually experiencing most likely the largest renaissance in its historical past proper now, however identical to every other area, it faces many challenges that must do with how individuals within the nation understand it.

In the intervening time, the common native listener adores something Ukrainian, no matter it might be, and I feel it’s nice when persons are lastly beginning to be fascinated about and pleased with their nationwide product.

I see it as the primary stage within the growth of the Ukrainian music scene. Since we’re step by step discarding Russian music, now we have began to note that there’s a lot of Ukrainian music and there are alternate options for nearly any style.

It’s nice to see that individuals have began to hearken to Ukrainian music, however the subsequent stage within the growth of the Ukrainian scene is to separate the great Ukrainian music from the dangerous. It’s a time when the demand for Ukrainian music is hovering, individuals like every thing that’s merely made in Ukrainian. Possibly we have to assume that there could also be one thing fallacious with a few of this music?

“Sharovarshchina” 

Sure, individuals help Ukrainian artists, however they typically don’t discover {that a} specific artist is making music with none effort. These days such a time period as “Sharovarshchina” has gained reputation – it’s a deliberate use of Ukrainian nationwide symbols, historic occasions, stereotypes within the songs, which everybody has heard of, and speculations on the conflict theme.

Because the consequence, the vast majority of mainstream and in style songs broadcast on radio, proven in commercials and promoted on daily basis, sound like a set of pseudo-patriotic strains; repeating phrases similar to “sharovary”, “sopilka”, “ЗСУ”, and “козаки”.

The track DELAMER – ГОРИТЬ ОКУПАНТ (rap ua) #зсу #russiaterroriststate was launched firstly of the full-scale invasion, with numerous Ukrainian rappers becoming a member of in. The principle motif of the track and the refrain appears like, “Take up arms”. The video sequence exhibits footage of navy motion. However the attention-grabbing factor is that nearly none of those rappers took up arms for actual and such boasting could offend the navy, who threat their lives on daily basis to defend the nation on the entrance.

It’s price telling how this pattern began throughout the conflict: within the first weeks after the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian artists hardly launched any new materials. A few weeks later the primary songs began appearing, they usually gained monumental reputation. One of many first was the joke track ‘Bayraktar’, a observe in regards to the weapons that have been delivered to us from Turkey within the first days of the conflict, and due to its profitable use by the Ukrainian navy, the identify was typically heard within the information. On the time the track appeared humorous and witty and completely suited the temper of the Ukrainians.

The issue is that after 9 months of conflict the phrase ‘bayraktar’ remains to be being actively utilized in songs and the identical songs are gaining hundreds of thousands of listens. In consequence, our mainstream music turns into a set of phrases like ‘bayraktar’, ‘kozaks’, ‘Bucha’, ‘occupants’, and the like.

This track – with 26 million views – has a relatively nice refrain from a musical standpoint and may be very nicely suited to use on radio, commercials, or tv. The lyrics are fairly easy, with none profound reflection on the conflict. They use the names of cities that have been extremely affected (Bucha, Dnipro, Irpin) and naturally references to Azov; particularly within the refrain. Nonetheless: it’s not the worst observe, it was launched at a time when such songs weren’t perceived as “sharovarshchina”, but it surely has all of the attributes and is a type of tracks that began hypothesis on the theme of conflict and have become extraordinarily in style.

This track – with 11 million views – makes use of a hackneyed snottiness within the instrumental, and primitive strains about will, power and victory which have caught the mainstream listener’s fancy.

One other instance is the Eurovision 2022 winners Kalush Orchestra and their track ‘Numo kozaki’. The blokes and their label ENKO – the largest within the nation – have discovered a win-win choice it appears: songs about cossacks. This time they invited Cossak Siromakhu for the match as nicely. No rap, no new voices or perhaps a need to search out them – a top quality beat and cossacks, that’s how our Eurovision winners see new Ukrainian tradition, and the way Ukrainians and foreigners will see it, in the event that they proceed to contemplate it good music.

This occurs as a result of artists are unwilling to give you new ideas and meanings of their work. It’s a lot simpler to put in writing a track in half-hour, stuffing it with strains in regards to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian fields, bayraktars and javelins. Additionally, these creatives make certain to shoot a clip of a destroyed home, conventional clothes just like the vyshyvanka and full the package deal with an instrumental break utilizing the sounds of a sopilka. In consequence, with minimal inventive effort an artist earns hundreds of thousands of auditions, reputation and cash.

I feel that each the listeners and the artists must assume a bit extra about what they need from the music: if listeners demanded extra attention-grabbing, totally different and complicated songs, the artists would most likely must give you one thing extra sophisticated than speculating on the theme of conflict and the nationwide symbols of the nation.

As a colleague of mine mentioned, “England has managed to search out its personal distinctive sound and elegance, they usually don’t sing and rap about King Arthur and Ivanhoe”.

Anyway I’m positive that in time this pattern of wierd songs utilizing the identical concepts will move, when individuals will discover time to start out pondering what Ukrainian music is dangerous and what’s good. There may be nonetheless a conflict occurring within the nation and lots of people don’t have time to grasp music. The truth that individuals need to hearken to Ukrainian music is a good cultural success, however the subsequent step is to differentiate high quality music from the banal and uninteresting merchandise that don’t have any cultural worth. Sadly, in the mean time, if a track is simply made in Ukrainian, individuals prefer it by default, regardless of if it has an attention-grabbing message or new musical options.

Certainly, these sorts of songs are the largest downside not just for rap, however of all Ukrainian music. Half a yr in the past it was tough for individuals to make use of their creativity to replicate the brand new actuality, as earlier than nobody had confronted such issues, however now, in 2023, easy songs and blanket use of stereotypical photos in a conflict context don’t develop or assist our tradition, however relatively simplify it and make it as uniform in all senses.

In the course of the first information in regards to the atrocities of the occupants in Bucha, a track referred to as ‘Bucha’ got here out. An apparent commentary on the horrible occasions and, after all, taking part in on individuals’s feelings, the track gained hundreds of thousands of views. Other than the primitive nature of the track itself, there are actually doubts in regards to the artist’s sincerity.

Mainstream pop artists have determined to realize reputation on the expense of probably the most primitive track, the place within the refrain they sing “what a cossack you might be”. The track bears no cultural or semantic which means. However almost certainly they don’t care, the primary factor is to get into the charts, and it doesn’t matter what the track is. Essentially the most widespread picture is of the cossacks. It feels as if nothing ever occurs in our nation and nothing ever occurred besides the cossacks, and now we have nothing else to sing about. The songs at all times comprise the photographs of fields and the Khatin (the identify of small homes within the countryside). And naturally, the worst factor – “Azov” and “Azovstal” – the actors simply use these phrases to get extra views – however I feel that these phrases, which have develop into a logo of a horrible tragedy, needs to be used very rigorously, and never shoved into any track.

Music can not evolve within the context of the identical meanings for a very long time.

Essentially the most placing instance of “sharovarshchina” occurred fairly just lately. The mainstream pop singer Jerry Heil launched the track ‘Kozatskomu rodu’, and it’s the quintessence of what Ukrainian music shouldn’t flip into. The entire track is made up of in style slogans, stereotypical photos and sociology, which some artists have been exploiting for 9 months.

Underground Roots?

To go looking, to create and to point out for the entire world what we dwell by, to experiment, to interrupt widespread patterns, to make distinctive music, to combine genres, to not be guided by the wants of listeners in a second, to talk actually and sincerely – that is the way in which how the Ukrainian trade ought to develop. 

Sadly, our underground rappers, whom I wrote about within the earlier articles, are hardly identified. For many individuals Ukrainian rap – it’s the identical half-dozen individuals who play on the radio, similar to Kalush’s label mate, AlyonaAlyona. However in reality, they don’t have anything in widespread with rap, besides they use the type of recitative. Even when they began out as recent, attention-grabbing artists with groundbreaking ideas and meanings throughout the style, now it’s simply mainstream music made with one aim in thoughts – to achieve success.

The attention-grabbing factor is that such artists have an excellent useful resource they usually may simply rent a ghostwriter for instance to make their track much less superficial, however even that they don’t do, they simply ballot every thing they will. For my part that could be a disgrace.

In consequence different much less in style artists start to mimic them, as a result of they consider that why complicate and attempt to convey one thing new into the music, if they will do the hundredth track in regards to the occupiers and the ZSU, making extra money and spending much less time. Such an method to creation can actually kill the event of an unbiased Ukrainian trade.

I feel that Ukrainian music must be totally different to be seen overseas and understood by Ukrainians. One-size-fits-all songs about the identical factor completely don’t develop the trade or individuals’s style. I feel artists ought to cease paying consideration solely to auditions and cash, and simply create, mix genres and never take note of individuals’s musical wants right this moment, on this time of conflict, as a result of individuals merely don’t have any time to develop their style when the nation is in a blackout and there’s no electrical energy and web. I’m positive that when the conflict is over, much more individuals will take note of the actually cool and unbiased artists who make and have made nice music that doesn’t come out of all of the cracks now.

Scandal

Whereas I used to be engaged on this text, there was a scandal which exhibits that solely now persons are starting to understand that they don’t seem to be able to devour each Ukrainian track that mainstream artists and labels give us. It appears to be no shock, Kalush and Skofka launched one other observe ‘Bat’kishchyna’, which has every thing that I’m writing about on this article. It will appear, every thing is as typical, one other “sharovar” observe, which is introduced as a deep dive into Ukrainian tradition, however there was an unacceptable and offensive line: “Freedom is a woman who loves dwelling, solely she wouldn’t give to a Russian”, (colloquially this implies ladies “had intercourse”, or “gave consent to intercourse”).

To make a bunch of primitive songs about Ukraine is their proper, in spite of everything lots of people have listened to them to date, however they’ve sunk to the extent of sexist strains that don’t glorify our tradition, however make it really feel ugly. After the discharge of the track the media and listeners raised a stink on social networks, forcing the artists to make some sort of remark and apologise. The artists did apologise, however Kalush’s excuse is questionable. He mentioned he meant the home and never the lady, however to be sincere, everybody laughed at that, as a result of the sexist horrible message of the road is apparent.

I contemplate this example as an enormous step away from such music as a result of lots of people questioned the standard of the music and the which means behind their lyrics. Due to the scandal, individuals began to understand that not every thing shoved by mainstream rappers is worthy music. The viewers will quickly cease consuming any track that accommodates the phrases “cossack”, “area” and “Armed Forces of Ukraine”.

“New Music for Younger Folks”

We want music for younger individuals. The conflict will undoubtedly finish and the nation can be left with younger individuals whose youth is being taken away from them. If I can speak about myself (I’m 20 years previous) I need to get pleasure from life, go to events, have enjoyable, and go to music festivals. The trade has to concentrate to the broader musical calls for of younger individuals. They need cool Ukrainian music to spend their time with, wherever. The younger technology needs to spend their youth in a cool approach, even now, and if the second comes when in any respect festivals and events they are going to dance madly and get together to Ukrainian music – will probably be an actual victory.

It scares me that due to the conflict all music can be in regards to the conflict. That’s what’s occurring; in nearly each observe individuals speak about what’s occurring within the nation proper now. There’s no strategy to keep away from it, as a result of individuals speak about what’s bothering them within the songs, and there’s no approach with out it, it’s additionally a part of the brand new Ukrainian music.

Personally I can’t hearken to songs about conflict and what’s occurring now, as a result of when there are rockets flying over the entire nation and each Ukrainian hears explosions of their metropolis, the very last thing I wish to hear in music is artists’ ideas in regards to the conflict. There may be an excessive amount of conflict in actual life, and personally for me music is only a strategy to get away from it and return to a previous, peaceable time.

Music about conflict and what’s going on within the nation is unfortunately inevitable. And it’s fallacious and inconceivable to not speak about it. Alternatively, I respect these artists who, regardless of the occasions, proceed to talk in music about what actually considerations them and follow the model they’ve created. That’s to say, if an artist had been rapping about their very own private beliefs and pursuits earlier than the conflict and continues to take action even throughout the conflict, as a result of it’s nonetheless near them – that musician, identical to somebody who talks actually and sincerely in regards to the conflict – instructions my respect and curiosity. I feel that simply specializing in the conflict in music is just not going to do any good. It doesn’t matter what you speak about, the conflict or your new trainers and ladies – the primary factor is to do it actually and sincerely.

Now we have extra unbiased music media and bloggers displaying new artists and music from totally different genres, the sort of music that’s thought-about ‘unformatted’ by the large music channels and radio. Sincere, distinctive artists can be seen and recognised, perhaps not now, however within the close to future, and “dummy artists”, who speculate on the theme of conflict can be seen as a mistake of the previous.