Putin is taking a break from allegedly meddling in U.S. politics to focus on a much more pressing issue… rap music. Volv Follow Dec 21, 2018 · Unlisted

In the past few weeks, several concerts by Russian rappers and music groups have been cancelled due to pressure from government officials. Husky, a popular Russian rapper and Putin critic was arrested and sentenced to 12 days in prison but public outcry led to his early release.

“Rap and other modern (forms of) art are rested upon three pillars — sex, drugs and protest. I am most worried about drugs. This is the way towards the degradation of a nation.” — President Putin

He said he rather have the Russian government “take charge” of rap music…

Russian officials recently found another way of dealing with a feminist protest band, Pussy Riot. An activist with the band, Pyotr Verzilov, was poisoned and lost his ability to see and speak due to the poison. Verzilov believes the act was conducted by Russian intelligence. Verzilov isn’t the first critic of the Russian government to be poisoned, there’s a long list of alleged Russian intelligence poisonings.

Another thing Putin doesn’t like about rap music is the swearing. When told it was ‘part of the language’, Putin replied, “we have all sorts of body parts, and it’s not like we put them on display all the time.”

…really?

The recent crackdown on music isn’t recent at all. Seva Novgorodsev is known as the “DJ who brought down the USSR” — in 1977, Novgorodsev’s radio show on BBC was instrumental in bringing western culture to the Soviet for over 40 years. Seva’s audience was over 25 million people strong, who tuned in to listen to western music and also his satirical commentary on Russian politics.

Soviet leaders were so threatened by Seva’s popularity that they used a number of methods to put an end to his show, including jamming the world service signal to stop listeners from accessing his channel. They even stopped letters that were addressed to him, at one point even jailing a fan for writing to Seva.

Politicians have been cracking down on musical forms long before Putin came into power — Stalin banned folk music, China banned Beethoven in the 1980s. Even Brazil tried to ban funk music just last year.

If you’re wondering what music Putin actually listens to if he spends so much time banning most of it, he’s known to be a big fan of ABBA and even flew the tribute group, Björn Again to perform ABBA’s hits for him.