"Having your opinion is expensive today"

The classic of the Russian rap Krew - about the new album "Dry Law", emigration and St. Petersburg

On June 7, the album of KREC “Dry Law” was released. For Fiju (Artem Brovkov), this is the first big job after leaving Russia. FUUZ is the only remaining participant in the KREC trio. In 2004, they released the album “There is no magic” - and turned over the idea of ​​how rap can sound in Russian. In 2022, FUUZ publicly opposed the military aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine and left the country. Medusa talked with the artist about the new album, emigration and the Russian rap industry in war conditions.

- The album “No Magic” will turn 20 years old in the fall. A sign plate, not only for KREC - sound and lyrics became more inventive, your branded reading appeared - but for the entire Russian -speaking rap. Why do you think this album has become so important for the industry?

- We were lucky to release our first releases in those days when the rap like the genre just began its ascent [in Russia] and was perceived by many as something outlandish. In the industry, there was, if not a vacuum, then a large shortage of independent artists and new names. And we did what we like without looking back at any formats, and the listener felt it: our lamp, home sound stood out abruptly against the backdrop of classic production projects.

- Your first acoustic album “Air of Freedom” (2014) came out when you started working without a Bitmaker Marat Sergeyev, who wrote music for the first albums of Kred, and remained one of the composition of 2004-2009. Why did you return to acoustics this time?

- Before that, I made attempts to record songs under the guitar and mix them into our releases. There were “sparks” , “glare” and other experiments in this direction. Before Marat left the project, we left the album “Silent easier”, where, according to the sensations, I jumped above my head in creating texts. It was necessary to shake off your hands and get distracted. Sortering out the options, I invited my friend, guitarist Denis Kharlashin to advise something together. What came of it, you know. For example, a track of a soldier suffering from PTSR.

-For the new acoustic album “Dry Law”, you chose country-sound. Is this following the trend in American music, an association with a nomad (consider - an emigrant) lifestyle?

- In the final of the work on the album, we slightly twisted the wybe towards country due to the cover and tracks that open and cover the album, but, in fact, this is rather a multi -gamble. Of course, in times of great shocks, the brain automatically searches for historical parallels: blues, country, reggae, rap are styles that do not turn away from the problems of real life. This music is just a product of these problems. And now we have become eyewitnesses to how millions of people in search of a new place under the sun fell into the unknown. The topic of emigration - both real and internal - interested me before, and now I went to a new round.

- Rap is a textual genre, but there is a sudden a lot of air on the new album. What to say: there is even one purely instrumental track. Why did you want to focus on the musical part this time? How were the tools recorded - work in St. Petersburg went in parallel?

- Denis [Kharlashin] in recent years has pumped his skills in writing music, including the creation of arrangements with a company, a cinema atmosphere. With his light hand, the songs that I composed and recorded under minimalistic guitar lups, began to play with new colors and turned into what we have at the exit. With the exception of one batch on the province in “from the mind” and the saxophone in the track “trifle”, Denis played everything - unique. Based on my experience of speeches with the living composition of the musicians, I wanted to give him [Denis] more freedom for experiments. There was an idea to combine all tracks with instrumental interludes, but working remotely, we had to postpone this fantasy until better times.

- In the track "Meteor" you read: "The city was called saints - not to forget about sins." This is perhaps the only mention of St. Petersburg on the album. On the “dry law” Petersburg is not a place of action, there is no lyrics about the city, but there is a certain silent image of the house. The reason is only in your emigration or something else?

- I composed this album, still at home, and recorded already in Bishkek. The lyrical hero [the album “dry law”] is still in the usual environment, but his gaze is more and more directed outside, where people who are not indifferent to him pass the tests that have fallen. Hence the track “on the flight”, in which he tries to find out how “there”, outside his abnormality, affairs. Or the track “Our Shadows”, where the hero convinces himself of the need for an important step and weighs all the pros and cons.

- Where do you live now? Did you have a sensation of a house outside St. Petersburg? You lived in Bishkek for some time - why exactly there?

- At the time of this interview, I am for the second week in Almaty, flew here from Thailand, met Spring in Montenegro, winter in Turkey. For the past year and a half, my wife and I have been living on a trip. Many places that we visited during this time, of course, became not indifferent to us, but to deceive ourselves and forget that we are visiting me, it seems to me a bad idea. We got into Bishkek by a happy chance: inexpensive flights plus friends who are ready to accept us without unnecessary questions.

- How does such a Petersburg -centric artist work and live outside St. Petersburg? If we can talk about this in an interview, from the moment of departure you have not returned to Petersburg and to Russia?

- The world is great and interesting, to be able to know it is happiness, and here, as they say, a sin to complain. I do not feel outside Petersburg, since my Petersburg is always in me - wherever my shell is physically.

The last time I flew to Russia in the fall of 2022 to present the Kaleidoscope album in St. Petersburg and Moscow. It seemed to me important.

- Over the past two years after leaving Russia, you periodically laid out Storis, as you record vocals for new tracks at home, using a blanket or other improvised means for soundproofing. You did not have the idea that it was such a return to the time of Kitchen Records , when should everything start again?

- Even at the time of Covid, I realized that the minimum set of tools for recording should always be in access. It is often easier to configure a home setup in a new place than to look for a local studio in which there will be a working atmosphere. Being in a long trip, you constantly come up with something, adapt, optimize, putting autonomy and compactness at the forefront. These skills are necessary in the same way as the ability to quickly collect and disassemble suitcases. I get high from these quests, and this really often reminds me of the times of our first DIY studios (from the English do it yourselself-“do it yourself.”-approx. “Medusa”) . Moreover, my next album, already completely written on the road, is called "Films in the closet." This will be the classic sound of KREC: pressed bits and measured recitative. In the near future we will go to note and, if everything turns out, we will present it in the fall. At the moment, the album has 18 compositions.

- Magnetism of the early work of Kred and, in particular, the album “No Magic” explained by the fact that such different artists, like you and Assai , complemented each other musically. Now, after 20 years, how do you think: this cooperation has made you stronger as an author of texts, as a MC?

- At the beginning of the journey, I was lucky to cooperate with the mass of more who have more pronounced [than Assai] MC. The desire to match their level constantly pushed me to work on myself and, of course, influenced me as an author. In rap, as in any other area, competition is necessary for growth. Despite the fact that in hip-hop the game is a lot of ego, this culture was originally created to exchange experience and self-development.

-The track “Tenderness”, published on the album “On the River” (2006) is perhaps your most recognizable, and you still perform it at concerts, but only your verse, without a verse of Assai. “Tenderness” is a load that crushes, devaluing your further colossal work, or are you happy to perform it?

-It would be strange to treat your own legacy as some kind of heavy load or burden. Fortunately, I do not feel such psychological problems.

- In the context of the war in Ukraine, I would like to know: how on your debut album “Invasion” (2002), recorded before cooperation with Assai, there were references to the war: on the cover - with military and burning ruins, in the track “Two minutes”?

-These were the first attempts to somehow sublimate the accumulated teenage experiences from madness around. I always dreamed of telling stories that could make the listener think, wanted to ask questions to this world and receive answers through creativity. Now, of course, it is impossible to listen to this album, but there is a certain starting point at which I still realized that war is not what we all needed.

- From the first days of a full -scale invasion of Ukraine, you publicly spoke out against Russian military aggression, while living in St. Petersburg and continued to perform there. When and why did you decide to leave?

- The first time we left Russia on March 8, 2022, but, after a few months, exhaling a little, we returned in order to close the concerts that were still consuming from the Covid and recall taking into account the experience for the second attempt [departure]. Of course, in our souls we hoped for the end of the war, but the surrounding reality prompted the opposite: censorship gained momentum, article for fakes, statuses of “foreign agents”, blocking almost all significant independent media and further along the list. The organizers before the concerts asked not to say anything “like that” from the stage, and the track “from my window” , which I wrote on quarantine, already sounded like something seditious.

We lived like on a powder barrel: we worked on a new album, and walking along Nevsky, we watched how people packed up in autozaki simply because they left the Gostiny Dvor metro station. During this time, I managed to record the Kaleidoscope album in St. Petersburg and compose a “dry law”, close a bunch of personal gestalt and spend any other time with close and beloved city. It was obvious that the life of a public person in Russia became associated with constant adaptation and, having a choice, I preferred not to step over my principles and left.

- Do you think the war in Ukraine destroyed the paradigm “Creativity outside of politics”, and now the public position of the Russian artist is no less important than music, even if the artist speaks out in songs?

- I think this is still a very individual question. There are creative people who are guided by publicity in life, and there are people whose public life overshadows their work. Of course, what happened has become a test for all of us, but I think that in this situation, everyone decides for himself which burden on his shoulder.

- Discussions about whether the popular Russian artists should or should not publicly express their position on the war, have come from the time of the annexation of Crimea. And there is such an example: Russian soldiers left a quote from the track of Noggano and Guf on the fence in the Ukrainian village of Bogdanovka, where during the Russian occupation they recorded the murders and rape of the civilian population. If it became known that a quote from your track - although it is difficult to imagine, given the KREC lyrics, - the soldiers of the Russian Army wrote on the wall in the occupied Ukrainian territory, how would you react?

- Any song, falling into a public field, in a broad sense ceases to belong only to the author, and everything said can be used against you or interpreted in a controversial way. I openly speak out against the war and worry about what does not depend on me, I do not see much sense.

- Why I ask: it seems that you are very attentive even to harmless phrases from your old tracks, which in the new context can cause associations with Russian military aggression. For example, at one of the performances in June 2022 in the song “Barely breathing” you changed the words in places: instead of “Kiev-Moscow or Peter-Kazan” read: “Peter-Moscow or Kiev-Kazan”. You were oriented during that performance or decided in advance that Kyiv-Moscow can now be inhabited?

-It is funny that someone noticed such a detail, but specially I did not change anything and such shuffles of consonant words often skip during live performances.

- By the way of the statements in the context of the war: why do you answer my questions in writing, and not in a conversation on video or audio communications?

- A few years ago, I realized that the interview in which I answered in writing went much more substantial than the decoding of the conversation on a conditional skype. If the reader decided to spend part of his precious time on me, then let him receive a balanced and thoughtful text, especially when difficult topics are touched upon, and you are far from Dmitry Glukhovsky. Plus, in this format sometimes (not in our case) you can simply skip any question, and this will not cause any inconvenience among both sides.

-At the end of August 2022, the Kaleidoscope album already mentioned. The track “In the World” closes the quote from Lev Schlosberg: “I am going around the city, I look at people-I know someone, I don’t know someone-I am trying to answer my question: what do you feel, people? Do you understand what is happening "? Are these the questions that you asked when you went to St. Petersburg after February 24?

- I have been asking myself such questions for a long time, and this does not mean at all that I need unambiguous answers, because creativity in my case is more likely philosophy than sociology. I try to look at what is happening from different points of view and do not forget that this is just my interpretation. People are complex and multi -layered, and, first of all, it is important to figure out what you think and want yourself.

- In your tracks in the last ten years there are enough reflection on your age, place in the industry and its own relevance. Do you think that today the Russian rap outside the context of the war can be called relevant? For example, chanson-raep ?

-Rap is now covering almost all age categories of listeners, they have not yet come up with something more universal. It so happened that even during the war, most people live their usual life: they go to work and study, to gyms and concerts, fishing - or sits in prison. The low threshold of entering this genre allows anyone to create a product that responds to a particular market request. Undoubtedly, I periodically reflect on this topic, but I still prefer the creation of my own to the creation of my own, albeit a niche product.

-The most experienced Russian rap artists who began their careers in the 1990s or 2000s publicly spoke out against the Russian Federation’s attack on Ukraine-you, Caste, Noize MC, Oximiron. Representatives of the conditional new school, commercially successful in recent years, for the most part prefer not only not to speak about the war publicly, but in some cases to engage in self -censorship, write repentant appeals and take pictures with professional scammers Ekaterina Mizulina. Do you think we can talk about the difference in generations here, or is it not at age and experience?

-Some are afraid to lose the fact that it was about to work out, others are not ready to risk accumulated assets. You can understand them. Plus, in the country where they give real terms for a plastic cup and post in VK, you have to especially weigh risks. In the end, you and your family will rake the consequences. Few people want to become an object of public flogging or bullying in social networks. It is expensive to have your opinion.

- You, having left Russia, chose the opportunity to speak openly - and lost more in fees and the number of concerts, what have you acquired?

- What I acquired and lost is not measured in money and concerts.

-In the track “Checking” from the album “Kaleidoscope” (2022) you read: “And someone is building a Berlin wall, but we will demolish it with a quiet conversation.” Today you believe in the possibility of dialogue with those who support the war or adhere to neutrality?

- I believe in it in the same way as in the possibility of dialogue with those who consider all Russians slaves, killers and Putinists. Someone considers it pointless to shout “no war” during the war, but if everyone is only for the war, then what will we get?

- Your new album “Dry Law” is not as encouraging as “kaleidoscope”, as it seemed to me. What do you think?

- “Dry Law” implies a sober view of what is happening: do what is in your power today, because tomorrow it may not come.

- Thought about where to look the first thing when/if you return to St. Petersburg?

- To visit my favorite places in St. Petersburg, it is enough for me to just close my eyes or insert one of the flash drives clogged to capacity into the laptop.

Talked by Alexander Shakirov

Photos of Valentina Berezkina