Charlot against everyone

The path from the "Evening Urgant" and the clips with Morgenster to burning the passport and persecution

On Wednesday, singer Eduard Charlot flew from Yerevan to Pulkovo, where the security forces immediately detained him. Charlot asked for money for a ticket from subscribers. In June, the musician burned the Russian passport and recorded the song “Mizulina - Mature Kozulin”, and on November 24, according to the report of Ekaterina Mizulina, who had previously addressed Charlot in the Investigative Committee of Russia, they initiated two criminal cases - under articles on “rehabilitation of Nazism” and “insulting the feelings of believers”. And between these two events, he managed to accuse the Jews of the crucifixion of Christ.

Three years ago, Charlot released loud hits and was considered one of the main ascending stars on the Russian pop scene. We asked the music journalist Pavel Yablonsky, who twice interviewed Charlot, tell about the career path of the performer and answer the main question - what went wrong?

The chronicle of its own fall is not new. A few years ago, the American rapper Danny Brown released the album of Atrocity Exchibition - a detailed description of constant overdose, alcoholism and madness. The introductory track on the plate was called “Downward Spiral” - an expression that can be translated in several ways: from a “vicious circle” and “falling down the inclined plane” to “life going under the slope”.

It seems that this expression is ideal to describe the life of Eduard Charlot in the last two or three years: from the “Lord of the Rings” as a favorite historical book and several fake deaths-to burning the Russian passport, songs with the lines of “Misoline-Mature Kozulin”, appeals about the fact that “Jews crucified Christ” and, finally, returning to Russia. A wagon of high -profile statements, a bunch of provocations and the image of a madman in social networks - this is what Charlot is associated with now.

But back several years ago.

Charlot at the peak of popularity

2019, to Covid for almost a year. The Russian musical industry is on horseback: people go to festivals, pop music has ceased to be considered pop, and in Moscow they only talk about the imminent launch of Spotify. But although the second half of the 2010s passed for the industry with a bang, such a number of new stars, as in the legendary 2017, as if no longer: everyone continues to look for new buckwheat and coin-someone who will turn the genre over again and turn out to be a new star.

And then Charlot appears - almost the main hope of a large Label Sony Music (one of the three largest in Russia and in the world). Charlot is a young Samara guy who only recently moved to Moscow; He has a sonorous voice, with which he operates as he likes: he can meow, can be nascent in the style of Micheus or Antochi MS, well, or, in the end, just sing. From school, he loves The Beatles - and not only loves, but writes out masterfully played on the piano caver (during the first interview we went to the Yoko exhibition in Moma - and, it seems, we both liked it).

Charlot like everyone. He writes cool original songs (“cheek on the cheek”), performs at Urgant, Gosha Rubchinsky goes to the dressing room, and they collects millions of views with Morgenshtern - and, surprisingly, then it is not yet fully clear who is the main fit on this fit. The manager offers Edik to take a clip with the snow -white Lamborghini - Charlot does not really like it, but he is ready to discuss. In general, everything would be fine - but Covid comes. And after a couple of months the first begins - already legendary - the battle of Charlot with the label.

Charlot against Sony Music

Many conflicts of novice musicians with their labels are easily described by the formula "I signed something, and it disappeared." Yes, sometimes it is dishonest, yes, sometimes labels really prescribe disproportionately large contributions to themselves - and sometimes the musicians completely fall into the album bondage (even Frank Ocean). Lawyers in chorus give one advice - read what you sign before signing.

Charlot and his father read the contract poorly - and a couple of weeks before the release of a full release, the artist began the information campaign against Sony. “As a result of one year of cooperation with Sony Music Enterteiment Russia, I became limited in creative plan, enclosed in documentary chains, fraud and self-change to my own views, in order to please their commercial desires, receiving only advances and“ Showkeys ”for their partners, for which, of course, I thank,” wrote Charlot.

Many were then embarrassed by the distorted words “Enterteiment” and “Showkeys” (instead of “Entertainment” and “Showcase”, respectively), but personally, I was more frightened by Charlot Storis, in which he said that Sony would dishonor the “Russian culture”, that is, his own. He clearly recorded other Storis under drugs - and then rapidly removed them. Approximately then, it seems to me that the habitual manner of Charlot’s communication with the world has already begun - to make another insane appeal, and then clean the entire account.

At this moment, I took another interview with Charlot - he said that the contract with the label was really read inattentively, and admitted that he laid out Storis in an altered state of consciousness, adding that he was "not a drug addict, but a smart person."

Despite the easy inadequacy, Charlot continued to smile, and indeed seemed a pretty guy - it was nice to communicate with him.

Soon after the interview, Charlot released the album “Born in hell” - his last release, which can still be listened to at streams. The one due to which there was a conflict with Sony (in the streams it will be indicated that the album was published by Koala Music-at that time the Sony Music division). And although Charlot managed to break the seven -year contract with Sony, you also can’t call him the winner.

Charlot before the war

After this story, the name Charlot surfaced less and less, and there were fewer concerts too. What is not surprising: the label, although a "soulless machine", but helps with advance.

In January 2022 - a month before the start of the war in Ukraine - Charlot released his last full -fledged album "The peasants gave cameras."

Moreover, he released him in a mankish-just laying it out with one path on YouTube (now it is removed, but the songs can be found in pieces).

She sounded interesting and by no means mediocre. The songs are built around the strengths of Charlot (vocals and virtuoso, by the standards of pop music, playing piano). In the texts, he leaves specific romantic stories somewhere towards abstract conversations about the struggle, justice and the Motherland. “Truth, the price is a struggle to the end,” Eduard sings on the first track from the album.

There are also talented romantic poems - for example, on a track called "The Spirit of Summary Gloom":

*The mirror star falls

I see in the reflection of the eye

Not closing

On the malice of wind and rain

Do not fall asleep in any way

I'm waiting for a sign where

You say riddles first

Throwing a circle to the seas

Thanks to you*

The album itself really sounds like a single mix: each next track goes into another, the tracks themselves often break from the inside. You will not hear the usual structure of a verse-ditch-bridge on them; There are many complex interruptions with a slowdown in the pace and a complete change in arrangement. Separately, of course, it is worth noting the track “Noisy Volga for a long time” - he quite proves that Charlot also wrote talented songs after a grinding from Sony.

Alas, the album “the peasants gave cameras” came out almost unnoticed - it was inconvenient to listen to it with a single sausage on YouTube, but it was never laid out on streaming. And a month later the war began - and they didn’t really remember about Charlot’s songs ..

Charlot and madness

... But they remembered his tricks in social networks. Somewhere for a year, Charlot disappeared from the radar, but then strange news about him fell regularly. Messages about his own death (the first-before the release of the album) became regular, and in June 2022, the artist “demonically wore a song about the devastation of the country and broke the guitar, mocked his main hit, accused“ drugs and label Sonya ”of loss of motivation and listeners of“ denigrating the saint ”, and promised not to release the albums again,” the musical history described that story journalist Vladimir Zavyalov.

Before the widespread spread of smartphones, scandals in the world of stars were reflected (and distributed) in newspapers and on the screen - well, washed down the conditional pet, fell into a flowerbed, and hell with it. Now everyone has a unique opportunity to observe breaks and self-destruction on the air (imagine what it would be like to look at Storis any inadequate pens from Jim Morrison!).

From a talented singer, Charlot began to turn into a talented jester (moreover, in places almost Shakespearean - after all, in addition to disruptions, there was almost a joke “truth -making”).

This is not to say that Charlot turned into a very crazy hermit. In the summer, he spoke at the Armor, and in the fall the series “1703” was released, in which the musician performed a cover on “My Defense”:

In December 2022, Charlot made a concert in the synagogue-the Bychkova Karina report on The Flow . A real rabbi acted as a leading concert, which read out rap and accompanied this with the next phrase: “Thank you! I feel like Kanye West! Oh, probably, you should not mention his name in the synagogue ”( in the fall of that year, Kanye just made a number of anti -Semitic statements. - Approx. ).

After the concert, Charlot gave a small public interview (in fact it was a conversation with the audience), from which we learned that the artist “was not very good in mental terms”, and he uses social networks to “drain dirt”. ”

A month later - again a fake message about death. A month later, Charlot published a new song in Telegram and wrote that the future of the project depends on how actively this song was sagging. The welcome 45 thousand likes were not scored, and Charlot himself began selling a new album “Myffantasia” through e -mail (!) For 4 thousand rubles. You can listen to the merged version on YouTube - alas, now there are a little more than a thousand listening, although it has been laid out in April.

Charlot and Rossia

It was already possible to write that the study of Charlot media appropriation resembles reading “Notes of a Madman” or “Norms”, but in mid -February the musician intrigued (or maybe pleasing) all his ultimatum anti -war position.

Five days after the unnoticed “mythfantasia”, Charlot suddenly published a mini-album with the name “Poetic Extremism”. On the cover, Edward stands with a rope around the neck in the porch. On the wall is written in chalk: "The shaman is fading." The album of the song “Rossia” starts with this first verse:

*I am dying with Russia, she is a kidnapper

He carries the wagons, growing savages

"P" is equal to a slave, "o" means a point

Worker, right, Rossia*

“In general, by default, I must approve of any such gesture - especially from a person who is not abroad, which means he exposes himself to a little greater risk than many protesters with a microphone and guitar / sequences, but ... if you call the country of“ Russia ”at least three hundred times, it will not still be better ... There is still a feeling that people were simply launched and does not behave, which is not in charge of it, which is doing it, - wrote Nikolai Ovchinnikov.

In February, The Flow was published on the last big interview of the artist (which he, of course, forbade to publish). Read it painfully and sad:

“I am 25 years old, I know what I'm talking about. My path has been made only for the sake of one thing - to stop the madness that corrupts the fuck all the sacred. A rapper is a frivolous dick that is read under the bit, smokes under the grass, fucks whores. And music is an approach, it is kun-fu, fuck, this is a serious topic, a dude. And in our country, such people were usually expelled - for example, Stravinsky or Tchaikovsky. ”

The most common reaction to the interview in the telegram channel The Flow is a yawn: “Charlot seems so fascinated by his own problems and confused in a misunderstanding of the world around that you stop even closer to the middle of the middle, I only want to help,” commented on the text by the music journalist Nikolai Redkin.

In the same interview, Charlot said that he was “sacrificing his life in the name of Pravda and is ready to die for her”: “This is my plan for 2023. It is such music that you need to write now, and even tougher, which will happen further. I will try to confirm my blackmail. ”

Charlot and arrest

Well, then the steep peak began. Brief chronology:

- Summer 2023 : Charlot burns a Russian passport, asks for invitations to Ukraine, records the song “Mizulina - Mature Kozulin” and throws eggs at the poster of the shaman's concert; Naits a photograph of Patriarch Kirill and his own military ID to the cross.

- October 2023 : Cuts overhead paces and speaks in support of Palestine (and for as many as three minutes): “Terrorism = Israel. Jesus once betrayed the herd of Jews. ”

- November 13 : asks for subscribers money for a return ticket to Russia (from Armenia): “I predetermined my life in Russian -speaking culture and I will fight for it”

- November 22 : flies to Pulkovo, where the security forces immediately take him. A few hours later, BAZA publishes Charlot, where he reports that he made "an outbreak in the understanding of what was happening."

- November 23 : “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” publishes the news that Charlot agreed to come to Ukraine in a suitcase - he was played in a telephone conversation by the prankers of Lexus and Vovan.

- November 24 : Ekaterina Mizulina reported that two criminal cases were instituted against Charlot - under articles on “rehabilitation of Nazism” (two episodes) and “insulting the feelings of believers” (one episode) - but there is no independent evidence of this yet.

Now, according to media reports, administrative protocols are drawn up on Charlotes under articles on the intentional damage of an identity document, and on the “discredit” of the Russian army. The first article provides for a fine of up to 300 rubles, the second - up to 50 thousand rubles. The singer was detained for 13 days.

And what was all this?

When Kanye West once again reached the point and allowed himself anti -Semitic statements, many were rightly indignant: provocation by provocation, but some lines cannot be crossed. Others laughed - they say, look, the old man went completely. But there was a third reaction - sympathy. Like, a person sits in his ivory tower, but in fact he needs help.

I do not know what mental ailments Kanye West and Charlot have; I have no idea what substances they took and in what quantities; With whom they met or parted, how they experienced Covid and war. I hope that Kanye West is fine (at least nobody is going to put him in prison) - but it seems that Charlot is completely confused in this life (and life, by and large, is very, very difficult). I do not want to justify anti -Semitic antics and speculate on apologies for Mizulina - but many artists blows their heads simply from swift glory. Add to this pandemia and war - few people get through all these things to twenty -five.

It is sad that the story of Charlot develops like this - but this is a significant symptom of time. If all this was not - he would have performed with Ivan Dorn on the Picnic Afisha instead of going in a nationwide shirt for repentance.

*But the best song is not the same

What is sung about me

I will be incomparable, knowing

That you will look at me

I will be incomparable, knowing

What are you ahuenny than I am here*

Instead of the result, I asked to comment on the situation of a clinical psychologist, phd Elena Cherepanov:

We now see a lot of disasters, wars that unfold right on the air, and this creates the effect of presence. And this can create the illusion that we have some influence on this and, at the same time, a feeling of powerlessness-because, in fact, it is impossible to help. In English there is an accurate expression describing the following cases: "Observe the crash of the train." The same with self -destructive public statements of famous people - a catastrophe in real time always attracts attention.

In culture, many such cases are known. How can this be explained? This is a feeling of messianism. It seems to them that they are so significant and invulnerable that they should speak out, and it does not matter what will happen to them. The need to speak out can be stronger than the instinct of self -preservation.

Often artists are defenseless in such situations. For many artists, stopping to express themselves means losing themselves. People of creative professions are generally poorly adapted when society sets a course in authoritarianism. And this question is not money - any artist can sweep the street or be a waiter.

Freedom of self -expression is both the value of their profession and its tragedy. If freedom is limited, there is a large crisis of identity. Creators are insanely difficult, probably, more difficult than others, to adapt to this changing environment. Real artists (not hucksters) have very few choice: to emigrate and lose their audience, do not create anything, not to speak out and write to the table (also a form of self -destruction), or escapism - to plunge into a different reality (for example, using alcohol or drugs).

What can help? In authoritarian modes, the role of mutual support increases. Well, of course, you need to appeal to psychologists. Это даст возможность быть услышанным, поможет принять решения и найти менее деструктивные способы самовыражения, и даже уменьшить вероятность депрессии или суицида, что всегда опасно в таких ситуациях.