Rolling non-US rap thread 2018

this 2014 DJ Premier/Dynamic Duo collab is great, any other Korean rap recommendations?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYz-LjtiVOc

Big news on the Thai scene - it's Rap Against Dictatorship

The song’s lyrics, which confront corruption, nepotism, the lack of accountability and transparency, poor healthcare, suppression of freedom of speech and the privileges afforded the rich while the poor suffer, are some of the most forthright criticism of the military government to appear in popular culture since they took power. - (The Guardian, 30 Oct 2018)

Rap Against Dictatorship - “Prathet Ku Mee” (Which is my country)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZvzvLiGUtw

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Responding swiftly, the military junta released its own rap song (???) ... the club banger "Thailand 4.0"

- https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/1568634/lame-government-rap-responds-to-prathet-ku-mee

"It received polite and scattered applause from the 500 young entrepreneurs and unicorn executives"

that is hella cool.

There’s some interesting stuff going on with Russian rappers and the government at the moment. The rapper Husky got arrested last month for shooting a video in public without a permit and it seems like a couple of members of the government (potentially even Medvedev) intervened to get his sentence quashed. The extremely pro-government TV pundit Dmitry Kiselyov then devoted a segment of his show to defending the Russian rap scene as heirs to the poetic tradition of Mayakovsky.

https://meduza.io/en/news/2018/12/03/russian-state-tv-pundit-sticks-up-for-rappers-dropping-some-sick-mayakovsky-lyrics

There are strong rumours the government paid Slava KPSS to release the track Vladimir Putin ahead of the last election as well.

https://youtu.be/veFih7cxWSQ

that is kinda fucked

It's pretty fascinating, imo. I don't know if I actually understand this, but the officially sanctioned idea of Mayakovsky as the progenitor of russian rap is crazy enough to have me intrigued. Where is this new rap-positivity coming from? Are the rappers actually pro-Putin or is there something more going on? Please let us know if you come across any more info about this, ShariVari.

So... Magnus Carlsen (yes, him) just made his debut as a rapper 6:20 into this song about a stolen moisturizer, lol:

https://open.spotify.com/track/30xYkYI3uta4moisnnpDmt?si=F7ZSYrJ_Sny0sJ3p2fxzFw

Zambian-born Sampa The Great continues to live up to her name:

- https://sampathegreat.bandcamp.com/track/energy-feat-nadeem-din-gabisi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDubhAKSeB0

She's based in Melbourne, and she won the Australian Music Prize for Birds And The Bee9. The spoken part by Nadeem Din-Gabisi might(?) be in Krio language...

"Life is about balance," Sampa The Great tells OkayAfrica. "This year taught me a lot about this. It was very important to me to continue to apply this lesson in all aspects of my life. In the world we live in it is very important we re-evaluate our perceptions of strength and weakness and the balancing of the feminine and masculine aspects of all our energy. It's especially important in our deeply unbalanced world." – (OkayAfrica.com / Archived)

Ukraine's Alyona Alyona is very good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FCMJ31i8Yg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aHep8LvQQc

She is!

German rap has some problems:

- https://www.musikexpress.de/deutschrap-2018-jahresrueckblick-1174209

Not to mention giving a top award to an album with anti-Semitic lyrics.