Resources for K-16 Educators: Music in Many Languages
Center for African Studies
Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies
European Union Center
Center for Global Studies
Center for International Business Education and Research
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Russian, East European and Eurasian Center
Other Studies Centers
Center for African Studies
The Center for African Studies' Engagement and Outreach Program is designed to increase public knowledge about Africa and to enhance the broader community's understanding of African peoples and cultures. Our programming serves K-12 schools, community colleges, the media, community groups, the business community, and the general public. For more information, please contact the center at african@illinois.edu.
Teaching African Music
Tony Perman, Illinois Alumnus
African music is many things. It is drumming, as so many assume. It is singing. It is electronica. It is for spirit possession. It is for play and dance. It is for concert reverence. No example of African music can fully encapsulate all of the things that make it African; African music is plural, performed, and dynamic. The challenge in teaching students about Africa lies in accounting for its diversity without losing sight of its singularity or overwhelming it with excessive attention to outside influences. Prior to the long-lasting and devastating colonial era in Africa, there was little documentation of musical performance in Africa, and the little that did exist was almost always the misguided (even if occasionally well-intentioned) explanation of a European observer--usually a businessman or a clergyman.
Just agreeing on what the word “Africa” refers to can be a challenge. In musical contexts, Africa usually refers to sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara can be a useful, if not daunting, geographical concept, but this definition unnecessarily divides Africa up racially and tends to leave out the varied, but related practices in North Africa, the Maghreb, and even Ethiopia. Other definitions might limit discussion to the continent itself, but this risks neglecting the varied practices of African immigrant and diaspora communities across the world who often identify themselves as African and who, given the horrors of slavery, rarely chose to leave the continent in the first place. Afro-Cuban music, Brazilian candomble, American hip-hop, and Spanish flamenco, for example, all have historical connections to African music.
The second challenge in any introduction to African music is defining music. Though the concept seems simple, countless African languages have no word for music. This, however, should neither suggest that music doesn’t exist in these places, nor that these languages are somehow limited or incomplete. Rather, in cases like the Shona language of Zimbabwe, their terminology and context reveal just how integrated the sounds typically associated with music are tied to gesture, movement, spiritual context, and communal participation. One can’t just play the drums. One must play with others, for others, and for dancing. Frequently those others being played for are spirits guiding communities through the rigors that increasingly plague Africa’s 21st century.
It is easy to reduce Africa to its problems, as news media, aid agencies, governments, and academics so frequently do. None of these reductions are necessarily wrong, but when people gather in the clubs of Kinshasa, the huts on the Rift Valley, the streets of Soweto, or the deserts of Mauritania they aren’t solely living their troubles. Music and dance are powerful and positive ways for individuals and their communities to come to grips with their contemporary realities, both positive and negative.
As productive as it can be to focus on the cyclical, rhythmic, communal, and spiritual aspects of African performances--whether in Ewe drumming, Shona mbira, Malagasy famadihana--this is never the whole story. African music can no longer be reduced to some primordial, precolonial ideal. As exciting as it is to discover Senegalese hip-hop, South African kwaito, Egyptian metal, or Ethiopian dub, African music will never be usefully reduced to its foreign influences. As Cuban as mid-century guitar music from the Congo might sound, it is not Cuban. It draws on and, reframes, reconsiders, and reenergizes these outside influences in news ways. The guitar is not just a European instrument; it is an African instrument. The old woman playing a musical bow silent to Western ears speaks to her own contemporary reality just as much as a world renowned, highly educated oud player from Cairo performing for packed houses of Egypt’s elite. They are both African.
African music is truly many things. Understanding that might be the first important step in learning how Africa fits into the world as it does, as it must, and as all should acknowledge.
Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies
The Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies (EAPS) is the steward of campus-wide teaching, research, programming, and outreach on East Asia, as well as Southeast Asia and the Pacific. EAPS is currently a National Undergraduate Resource Center devoted to the enhancement of campus undergraduate teaching and learning on East Asia and to outreach programming on East Asia for educators, the public, and media and business professionals. EAPS serves over 100 specialists on East Asia, as well as more than 30 off-campus affiliates across the state. For more information, contact Anne Prescott at aprescot@illinois.edu .
Music in East Asia: From Woodblock Prints to Protests to Jackie Chan
Music is a marvelous way to introduce students to the culture, history, and of course, the language of a country. It can be used to demonstrate trade, marketing, or legal issues within and between countries. It is also an enjoyable way to engage students in concepts that they might not ordinarily think have any connection to their lives. Here are some examples of how Japanese, Korean and Chinese music can be used in classes from music, literature, history and beyond.
Music pleases the ear, while visual art pleases the eye. However, through visual art, we can learn a lot about musical traditions. The Ear Catches the Eye (Hotei Publishing, 2000) is a wonderful book which features depictions of musical instruments and traditions in Edo (1603-1867) Japananese woodblock prints. By examining the prints, students can determine what kinds of instruments were used, who played them, who the listeners were, what kind of clothing the performers wore, etc. This can lead to an examination of important historical events, people, as well as issues such as trade and economy. Most of the prints in this book have some written explanation, whether it’s a simple title, the song being depicted, or information on historical context. This information reinforces how important language is not only to music, but also to visual art and the transmission of history. Listening to examples from the instruments or the narrative or theatrical genres portrayed by them enables students to connect the culturally preferred musical sounds in different situations.
Korean samulnori percussion music is sure to catch the attention of students with its intricate rhythms, choreographed moves, and costumes. Samulnori, which grew out of an older tradition of farmers’ music, came into its modern form in 1978. This powerful ensemble of instruments--comprised of two types of drums, a large gong and a smaller cymbal-like gong--is often used by college students and others in protests or other situations where the performers want to attract attention. Words are often incorporated into the rhythmic texture; and certainly language is a part of the milieu when a particular group intends to draw attention to social issues. What appears at first to be only an orally and visually exciting musical tradition can actually become an examination of the history of social unrest, as well as other events and how they are transmitted through society,
In China, nothing could be more perfect than Peking Opera or any one of the regional styles of theater (which nearly always includes music) in order to emphasize the close relationship between music, movement, language, and the recounting of historical events or moral tales. The spoken language of a region--whether it’s Mandarin, Cantonese, or another regional dialect--is critically important to the music since all Chinese dialects are tonal: the inflection with which the syllable is spoken determines its meaning. For example, the meaning of the syllable “ma” pronounced with the incorrect tone can change the meaning of the word from “mother” to “horse” to “scold”! In musical theater, to some degree the melodic shape must follow the linguistic tones to aid in understanding the stories being told. These stories are primarily historical, recounting real events from wars to the actions of great (or not-so-great) emperors, or imparting moral lessons to the audience. The message is of great importance. The stories may also impart information about religious beliefs and traditions, movement along the Silk Road, and social interaction. In other words, musical theater can be used as a “hook” for the study of virtually anything in China. What’s more, as a child actor Jackie Chan trained to be a musical theater actor. What middle or high school student can resist the “coolness” factor of the most famous martial arts performer today?
European Union Center
The European Union Center (EUC) serves as a bridge of exchange and understanding between residents of the United States and member states of the European Union (EU). The Center brings together faculty and students from across campus to promote the study of the EU, its institutions and policies, and EU-U.S. relations. Working with other campus units and other institutions, the EUC also creates and delivers high-quality programs that serve Illinois businesses, policy makers, high-school teachers and students, and the general public. As one of the most comprehensive EU Centers in the U.S., the Center is the focal point on campus for teaching, research and outreach programs on the EU. For more information, please contact the center.
European Songs and Anthems: Dialogues on History, Culture, Belief
Reneé Gordon, European Union Center
When teaching European culture in the classroom, instructors have limitless texts, biographies, and histories at their disposal. Encapsulating the feelings of a particular nation or group, however, can be taught more compellingly by using a medium that appeals to multiple senses. Teachers should not shy away from using music in the classroom. The possibilities available for enlivening discussions about a country’s political, historical, and cultural experience exist in the recordings, performances, and texts of songs and anthems throughout Europe. To demonstrate the capabilities for classroom instruction using songs and anthems, here are two musical examples: the Portuguese fado tradition and the Bulgarian national anthem.
The popular Portuguese fado is one genre pioneered by past and current artists. Fado, meaning “fate” in Portuguese, is a style of song originating in early 19th-century impoverished neighborhoods of Lisbon. Usually accompanied by Portuguese guitar, soloists communicate with musicians and audience members, playing on their ability to express ideas, emotions and stories through improvisation, performance gestures, and visual interaction. The poetic texts of fado songs deal with a number of themes, including descriptions of the conditions and places where fado first began, specific events, nature, political struggles, and even other fado singers. From popular artists to former fado performers, songs for class presentation can be chosen for the lyric content of the piece. Historical, geographical, and cultural topics abound in the texts of fado songs, and the inclusion of videos or recordings with translations can help to shape any unit on Portuguese culture.
National anthems offer multiple directions for lessons on Europe. Like many anthems, Bulgaria’s anthems portray different historical periods. Today’s anthem, written in 1885 by a musician leaving to fight in the Serbo-Bulgarian War, was adopted in 1964. The first verse highlights Bulgarian topography, which could be adapted to lessons on geography: the Danube, the region of Thrace, and the Pirin Mountain Range. While only the first verse and chorus are used today, two others were previously performed, one dealing with warfare while the other incorporates communist ideologies. Different verses and the anthem’s late adoption raise questions about former national anthems and what those pieces communicated textually. The Russian, Bulgarian monarchical, and communist control of Bulgaria are all themes included in previous anthems, correlating with these changes of power. Any unit on Bulgarian history is enhanced by this account of its national anthems; by examining how the national identity and policy of one nation is reflected in its anthem, the political sentiments and pride of one nation is available for further inquiry, packaged in musical form. Even the Anthem of Europe offers debates about how languages used in music produce meaning and how music is used to represent large communities.
National popular music styles and political statements encapsulated in European national anthems touch on themes taught in American classrooms. Resources available online and at local libraries can assist in integrating music and videos in the classroom, thus presenting important historical, cultural, political, and contemporary issues in new ways.
Sources:
Bulgarian national anthem: http://www.nationalanthems.info/bg.htm
“National anthems.” In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/09216 (accessed February 25, 2009).
Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco. "Fado." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/09216 (accessed February 25, 2009).
Portuguese fado tradition: http://worldmusiccentral.org/staticpages/index.php/fado
Wikipedia contributors, "Mila Rodino," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mila_Rodino&oldid=272629973 (accessed February 25, 2009).
Center for Global Studies
The Center for Global Studies (CGS) globalizes the research, teaching, and outreach missions of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. CGS is a National Resource Center in Global Studies designated by the U.S. Department of Education. In 2008, CGS was approved by the United Nations as an NGO Affiliate through the UN Department of Public Information.
Center for International Business Education and Research
The Illinois Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER), is one of 31 national resource centers for international business, and a leader in designing and delivering programs that equip future business leaders with language skills, cultural awareness, and the specific business skills needed to be at the vanguard of international business management. Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Illinois CIBER coordinates seminars and workshops for professional audiences; funds faculty research on international competitiveness; underwrites development and delivery of new business foreign language courses; develops and sponsors overseas experiences for undergraduate and graduate students; supports an annual international business case competition; serves as a resource for the business community through its website, conferences, and consulting; and administers the Certificate in Global Business Culture with Area Specialization. For more information, please contact the center at lsjohnso@illinois.edu or visit our website at
www.ciber.illinois.edu
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chicago form a U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center consortium to promote Latin American and Caribbean Studies, teacher training, library resources, and expertise in less commonly taught languages throughout the state and beyond. This joint program hosts annual meetings of the Illinois Conference of Latin Americanists, conducts yearly seminars on topics of mutual concern, exchanges faculty and students, shares distinguished visitors and films, and engages in a variety of K-12 activities for schools and the public. The combined resources of the consortium provide one of the largest concentrations of human and material resources on Latin America in the United States.
Many Musics in One Language: Brazilian Portuguese
Eduardo Herrera, Graduate Assistant, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
In U.S. music stores one might find an entire section of ‘Brazilian Music’ which may include samba, bossa nova, and Música Popular Brasilera (MPB) Singers. In Brazil there are in fact hundreds of different genres that sell regionally and nationally, making its music industry the largest in the region. By looking at different types of Brazilian music today we can see different trajectories of questions regarding African heritage, migration, and nationalism
Perhaps the best known musical genre from Brazil is samba. Samba, however, is actually an umbrella term that covers a multitude of styles. Carnival samba is perhaps the most recognizable of them. It is played by large samba schools with dancers and singers on top of floats in the world famous Rio de Janeiro carnival. The samba schools consist of large groups of percussionists playing the surdo, pandero, agogo, snare drum, tamborín, ganza, repinque, and the cuica. For many, samba represents the very essence of brasilidade (“Brazilianness”), and it was used throughout the twentieth century as a sign of Brazilian nationhood.
In the state of Bahia, Carnival became home to the celebration of black identity and African heritage and birth of the blocos afro. The two most famous blocos, Ilê Aiyê and Olodum are more than just music groups: they implement a sociopolitical agenda of black consciousness, antiracism, and social and economic justice. Their music incorporates multiple influences from the African diaspora, such as salsa and reggae, into what they have called samba reggae.
Not only in Bahia, but in the whole north-east of the country one cannot miss the energetic sound of forró. Performed by a trio consisting of an accordion, triangle and a drum called zabumba, classic forró songs from Luiz Gonzaga sang of the hardship of migration to the big cities.
The uniqueness of Brazil’s indigenous music is reflected in some of its more well-known artists. Chico Buarque, for example, is a multi-faceted musician and part of a younger generation, that brought together its experiences with Brazilian samba, bahião, bossanova and foreign influences like rock—especially the psychedelic albums of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix—as well as jazz, reggae, and experimental classical music and fused it all into something they called Tropicalismo. The music of Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Tom Zé, Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes presented a different understanding of Brazilian culture and openly criticized nationalist and populist assumptions during years of harsh political repression. Despite the censorship, these musicians became tremendously influential.
Cuban Music
William Hope, Graduate Assistant, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
It is often suggested that “Music is the universal language.” Certainly, music making is common to the human experience across time and locales; indeed, some would argue it is what makes us more fully human. Music can be a powerful art form that connects people in spite of social boundaries and cultural differences. Simultaneously, music can reinforce those same boundaries and bring into stark contrast the cultural, and often political, differences between people. At its core, music making can provide the contexts for shared experiences and social solidarities, the grounds by which we understand ourselves as part of larger social collectivities of family, community, region, nation, and beyond.
I believe that the answer to incorporating studies of music into our classes lies in introducing a wide range of musical expressions while providing students more awareness of the historical contexts and conditions within which people make their music.
For example, music making in Cuba, like other areas of the Caribbean, is deeply intertwined with the legacies of colonialism and sugar plantations. Cubans have long histories of migration, both forced and voluntary, and their musical traditions are the products of complex social interactions between principally, but by no means exclusively, the Cuban-born descendants of Africans and Europeans. Afro-Cuban drumming traditions provide the sonic foundation of such religious expressions as Santería, Palo Monte, and the ritual brotherhoods of Abakuá; secular expressions are found in rumba and comparsas. Heavily influenced by migrants from southern Spain and the Canary Islands, Cuban poets and musicians maintain the four centuries-old practice of improvising poetry to music in punto guajiro.
In the 20th century, as Cuban intellectuals sought the roots of distinct national identities in the face of North American political economic dominance, musicians and dancers transgressed boundaries of race, class, and gender in their own assertions of “Cubanness” as they created the Cuban son. Today, this genre rhythmically grounds transnational circulations of salsa, as people throughout the Americas are using one of music’s many languages to express themselves within the historical conditions of the late-20th and early 21st centuries.
Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
The Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CSAMES) is a National Resource Center for the teaching of the Middle East and South Asia. Our Center’s research and teaching covers a very expansive part of the globe, a region that is home to about one-fifth of the world’s population and the cradle of some of the world’s oldest religions and civilizations. CSAMES’ mission is to facilitate scholarship on the Middle East and South Asia by regularly organizing lectures, symposia, conferences and community outreach events. During the past year, CSAMES has further developed K-12 curriculum materials for teachers that focus on cultural, social, traditional and religious issues in these complex and rich regions of the world. For information on curriculum materials, educator resources, or outreach events, please contact Angela Williams at (217) 333-2258 or aswillms@illinois.edu.
Where Global Meets Local: Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture in the Middle East
Angela Williams, Outreach Coordinator, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Although it originated among an African American community in urban New York in the late 20th century, rap/hip-hop music has become a globalized genre of music, amounting to one of the largest cultural imports today. This style of music is often associated with youth culture and used as a mechanism for youth resistance. Even though the style is a global one, the artists and music exist within the local environments, using local languages, nuances, and themes within a musical genre that has historically been used to “speak truth to power.” The prevalence and popularity of hip-hop has steadily increased throughout various world regions. The Middle East is no exception. More and more musicians throughout the Middle East use this style of music as a form of resistance and expression of identity. Introducing these local variations in the genre of hip hop music in the classroom, provides a great segue into an analysis of the socio-cultural milieu prevalent in other societies. Studying a music genre that is easily accessible to American youth even as it is extremely different in local situations can help contextualize resistance in both its local and global forms.
One popular Egyptian group is MTM, whose name is an acronym for Mezzika Tilakhbat Mukhak (Music that Messes up your Mind). The artists are from Alexandria, but their music is popular in Cairo as well. Their lyrics, in Egyptian Arabic, concern social issues, especially those involving youth in Egypt. According to group member Takki, “It (rap) is really close to young people because it speaks their language and it speaks about their real-life problems and social life from their point of view. We really needed this in the Arab world” (Reuters 2004). The Arab hip-hop scene is gaining its popularity with MTM, who has produced CDs and was awarded for best modern Arab act at the Arab Music Awards in 2004.
A newer group from Cairo, called Arabian Knightz, includes the members E-Money, Getto Pharaoh, Sphinx and Saifullah. This group raps in both English and Egyptian Arabic, therefore globalizing hip-hop music even more with this language duality. Given the group’s use of English there is the potential to reach an expanded audience of non-Arabic speaking listeners. The use of Egyptian Arabic keeps them authentic to their Arab identity. The artists’ names display a mixing of hip-hop culture and traditional Arab culture. Getto Pharaoh brings to mind the hard streets of America. This notion transplants the ghetto into an international sphere by suggesting that certain nations or parts of the world are being ghettoized by the rest of the world. Saifullah on the other hand, meaning “Sword of God,” gives a religious aspect that authenticates the artist as having authority and ability to defend with his words.
There have been several recent films that document rap artists and hip-hop culture in the Middle East and North Africa. I Love Hip Hop in Morocco, produced by filmmakers Joshua Asen and Jennifer Needleman, follows young artists as they prepare to take part in the country’s first major hip-hop festival. Other films provide a close look at the artists’ interactions with one another in contexts of conflict. Subliminal, the most popular Israeli rapper, began his career in the mid-1990s with apolitical lyrics. More recently, however, he has written more patriotic songs. Though he helped to discover the Arab Israeli rapper, Tamer Nafar, and the two have collaborated together, they eventually disassociated from one another due to political differences. Their stories are documented in the film, Channels of Rage, which is available in the CSAMES lending library. Another more recent film, Sling-shot Hip-Hop, is a documentary focusing on Palestinian artists. Produced by Jackie Saloum, the film examines how the artists use rap music to express resistance. CSAMES, with support from the Illinois Network on Islam and Muslim Societies, will be screening this film and hosting a discussion with Saloum in three venues in Illinois during Spring 2009.
Additional Resources
Alim, Samy, H., Ibrahim, Awad, and Pennycook, Alastair (2008). Global Linguistic Flows: Hip Hop Cultures, Youth Identities and the Politics of Language. Routledge.
Swedenburg, Ted. “Imagined Youths,” in Middle East Report MER 245 – Winter 2007.
Russian, East European and Eurasian Center
The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center is a U.S. Department of Education-designated National Resource Center, committed to providing information and service to K-16 teachers. If you are interested in the center’s workshops, onsite presentations, or curricular materials, please contact the center at reec@illinoi.edu or visit www.reec.illinois.edu. The Web site features a special section for K-12 teachers under Outreach, which includes an extensive annotated bibliography of resources, information on the center’s multimedia lending library, annotated links to relevant Web sites, and more.
Popular Music in Russia
Richard Tempest, Director, Russian, East European and Eurasian Center
A look at the current popular music scene in Russia can shed light on the tensions, fissures and discontinuities that have typified that country’s path from communism through the economic and political upheavals of the Yeltsin years to what Putin’s advisors now call sovereign democracy. So here is a very brief survey of the good, the bad, and the cacophonous in Russian music.
The first thing to recognize about Russian popular music is that its formats and genres were largely imported from the West. Multiple forms of Rock, reggae, country (yes, there are Russian country music singers!), bubble gum bands, boy bands, girl bands, gay bands and every other type of band were originally inspired by Western (mostly British and American) models. But almost immediately the musical productions in question were infused with Russian content.
The last years of Gorbachev’s perestroika (policy of economic and political reform) saw the emergence into the open of an extensive underground rock culture that in comparison with its Anglo-American models was more socially engaged though less polished musically. In Russia the lyrics to rock songs have traditionally been just as important — often more so — than the actual music. Among formerly unofficial rock groups that continued into the 1990s and beyond were Akvarium, with its glamorous singer/composer Aleksandr Grebenshchikov, who fused Russian folk motifs with rock, reggae, classical music and high-brow poetry. Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine) were Russia’s answer to the Beatles, covering many of the same musical bases and expressing an inchoate but powerful longing for freedom and a very “Beatlesque” joie de vivre (joy of living). At the other end of the emotional spectrum, Krematorii, as their name suggests, were dark, pessimistic, and acidly (I use the term advisedly) contemptuous of authority. Kino, with its charismatic Russian-Korean front man Viktor Tsoi, commemorated the bleakness of late-Soviet urban existence, with their music’s acoustic sound and low production values a statement in themselves. DDT is a heavy rock combo whose leader, Yuri Shevchuk, is an outspoken opponent of the Putin government and a scathing critic of the popsa phenomenon (a form of commercialized pop musicNautilus Pompilius’s commercial mainstream rock was popular in the 1990s (the group disbanded in 1996) and provided the sound track for Brat (Brother; 1997), the archetypal Russian gangster movie that launched the revival of the nation’s film industry. Some members of this founding generation of Russian rockers have left the scene, tragically or otherwise. Tsoi was killed in a car accident in 1990, Akeksandr Makarevich, Mashina’s leader, now does cooking shows on TV, while Grebenshchikov basks in his status as Russian rock’s elder statesman. Nautilus Pompilius disbanded in 1996, though Krematorii are still going strong — or going wrong, since the band’s preoccupation with death, drug-taking, and other dark themes continues to scandalize the more traditionally minded.
Liubé is perhaps the most interesting Russian rock group in the cultural sense. They sing of World War II heros and the exploits of the spetsnaz (Russian special forces) in the Northern Caucasus. Their music contains elements of Soviet-era patriotic songs, hard rock and, once again, folklore. Thanks to their lyrical and musical quotations from the Soviet past, Liubé resonates with Soviet nostalgists who long for a time when Stalin was great, vodka was cheap, and the red flag flew from Kamchatka to Cuba. But it is also possible to enjoy Liubé’s driving beats and patriotic exaggerations (“America, Give Us Back Alaska”) as tongue-in-cheek performances, postmodern exercises in total quotation and total irony.
Unapologetically commercial, popsa saturates the country’s airwaves as well as Russian MTV. Its songs are not so much musical productions as products. The reigning matriarch of the scene is Alla Pugacheva, Russia’s Barbra Streisand, whose career started in the 1970s. Girl groups such as Via-Gra (technically Ukrainian, though they sing entirely in Russian) and Blestiashchie (The Sparkling Ones) take the Girls Aloud formula and add a big dollop of eroticism: pole-dancing with singing, as it were. Alsou, a stunningly beautiful ethnic Tartar, is a bit more demure and appeals to marginally less testosterone-addled adolescents. Male popsa stars like Dmitrii Malikov are Russian versions of Enrique Iglesias: toy boys who can croon a tune in the studio, and sometimes live.
Russian rap, which tends to be performed by scrawny, pimply gangsta wannabes, is uniformly bad because it is uniformly unauthentic. The exception is Dolfin, a high-brow outfit that combines classical-sounding poetry with chill and electronica.
Finally, there is reggae, which can be surprisingly good. 5’nizza (Friday), a now disbanded duo, were famous for their performance of the old Soviet national anthem (restored by Putin early in his presidency). This could be taken either as a postmodern inversion of a signature piece of totalitarian music or an avant-garde affirmation thereof, depending on one’s politics and level of cultural sophistication.
Other Studies Centers
Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security
Website: www.acdis.illinois.edu
Phone: 217-333-7086
Fax: 217-244-5157
E-mail: acdis@illinois.edu
Women and Gender in Global Perspectives
Website: www.ips.illinois.edu/wggp
Phone: (217) 333-1994
Fax: (217) 265-0810
E-mail: kcmartin@illinois.edu
