★★★★☆
Hundreds of young Russians gathered to vent their anti-war feelings at this rare London appearance by the Russian rapper Oxxxymiron, one of several overseas benefit shows the 37-year-old star is hosting after cancelling his Moscow and St Petersburg dates in protest against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. With proceeds going to Ukrainian refugees, this live streamed concert balanced practical good intentions with more challenging aspirations to change a few minds at home. Ukrainian flags were much in evidence, from face-painted symbols, badges and cloaks right up to the inspired use of yellow and blue stage spotlights. Russian flags? I counted zero.
Born Miron Yanovich Fyodorov in the Soviet Union, Oxxxymiron has spent much of his life in western Europe but enjoys huge popularity in Russia. Indeed, only two months ago the deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov was publicly praising his lyrical skills. Now the rapper has been blacklisted at home as part of a growing Soviet-style censorship crackdown on artists who bravely criticise their bloodthirsty government. Even this event’s umbrella title, Russians Against War, could potentially earn Fyodorov jail time in Putin’s increasingly Orwellian police state.
A wiry and dynamic presence on stage, Fyodorov performed this show mostly in Russian, although he is fluent in English, having lived in Britain after his parents emigrated here for work reasons. He studied English literature at Oxford, where he was president of the Russian society. Lean, nimble, punchy tracks such as Russian Road Rage and Non-Fiction were steeped in the pugilistic grammar of rap, their fast-talking verbosity recalling Eminem at times. But Fyodorov’s lyrics are more darkly humorous than macho, peppered with satirical jabs against the Kremlin’s paranoid conspiracy theories, fake news, homophobia and hypocrisy.
The tone of this event was more compassionate than confrontational. Between tracks, Fyodorov expressed solidarity with Ukraine and called for an end to the war. But he also pleaded with the crowd not to react aggressively to Russians who are struggling to see the brutal truth through a thick fog of state propaganda.
Pulling off an audacious plot twist as he ended his set, Fyodorov ceded the stage to his surprise guest Boris Grebenshchikov, the veteran folk-rocker often seen as Russia’s Bob Dylan. Blacklisted repeatedly during Soviet times, the 68-year-old protest singer and long-time frontman of the St Petersburg band Aquarium has been banned again at home for calling the war in Ukraine “madness”.
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Grebenshchikov’s guitar-strumming ballads struck a melancholy, soulful note, uniting the audience in a rousing singalong. Shows such as this are small gestures in the grand scheme of things, of course, but the hope and humanity of young Russians was heartening to witness.
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