In the past decade, no other musician has been able to so rapidly capture and hold the attention of Russian youths like Morgenshtern. Similar to controversial American rappers such as 6ix9ine, Lil Pump, and XXXtentacion, Morgenshtern got face tattoos early in his career and made his appearance outlandish, was overly hedonistic, and purposely sought out […]

HammAli & Navai is a popular Russian rap group created by Alexander Aliev and Navai Bakirov. The two Moscow native, ethnically Azerbaijani musicians formed their rap duo in 2016, when they released their first song “День в календаре” (A Day in The Calendar). Both members studied music from their early years, which led to individual […]

Scriptonite’s vocal style is unusual. Sometimes he raps or sings, but other times he shouts or goes into a sort of bizarre whaling that sounds like he is crying. This may come across at times as comical to outsiders, but to a fan of the music, this gives it a sort of relatability marked by […]

Artyom Arteomovich Gotlib, known professionally as Slava Marlow, is a Russian producer, rapper, beatmaker, and YouTube content creator. Slava Marlow was born on October 27, 1999 in Novosibirsk, a Siberian town known for science and industry. His parents divorced when he was young. He greatly disliked his father after the divorce, and therefore disliked his […]

Hanna (Ханна) is a Russian pop star and model. Her full name is Anna Vladimirovna Kuryanova (Анна Владимировна Курьянова) and she hails from Cheboksary, the capital of the Chuvash Republic in south central Russia. She was born in the last days of the USSR on January 23rd, 1991. Hanna graduated from a music school specializing […]

PLAYD Russia on spotify has over 80 public playlists, covering many different genres, occasions, and charts. They can also be found on Facebook. Updated weekly, their Top 50 Rap chart shows the top hits in Russia. In late June of 2021, here is a snapshot of the Top 5:   1. CAMRY 3.5 – Slava […]

Manzhia, a Russian-Tajik singer, is coming into a wider spotlight after her performance at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021. She was born on 8 July 1991 in Tajikistan. Her mother was a fashion designer and psychologist, and her father worked as a doctor. Her father initially discouraged her from pursuing music, believing that it wasn’t […]

Alexei “Potap” Potapenko, born in Kiev on May 8, 1981 is a Ukrainian producer, singer-songwriter, composer, water polo player, and vocal coach. He performs in Russian. The son of Lyudmila Potapenko, a world champion diver, Potap was primarily engaged in swimming and water polo as a child. Despite devoting nearly all his free time to […]

Max Korzh (Макс Корж) is a contemporary Belarusian rap/hip-hop singer. While most of his music is in Russian, he does have the odd song or video clip that includes some Belarusian. Korzh attended musical school outside Brest, Belarus, and founded his first band, LunClan, with some friends when he was 16. The band, along with his next […]