Tag Archives: rap

A rapper in Uzbekistan is challenging widespread social issues through his songs

Social and political problems are on full display

Uzbek rapper Konsta in the music video of his song “Sariq jiletka.” Screenshot from Konsta Uz YouTube channel.

This article was written by Nurbek Bekmurzaev and originally published on the Global Voices (GV) webpage on July 01 2023. It is republished here according to the media partnership between GV and Shouts.


On June 25, Uzbek rapper Sharif Abdullaev, who goes by the pseudonym Konsta, created headlines by releasing a new song called “Xavo” (Air). In it, Konsta raises the issue of environmental degradation caused by deforestation, development projects, and air pollution in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent. The rapper complains in the song that he is unable “to take a deep breath,” the city feels “like a cage,” and everything “white has turned grey.” Konsta notes that the root cause of these problems are humans, who behave like pests and have gotten used to cutting down trees, instead of planting them.

Here is a music video of the song “Xavo.”

“Xavo” is one of Konsta’s many songs produced in the genre of music he calls “conscious rap”. Konsta’s songs focus on Uzbek society, its problems, and the role of each individual in unfolding events. His source of inspiration is his personal experience of working at a bazaar in his hometown of Guliston in eastern Uzbekistan and being migrant labour in Russia.

Around two million Uzbek citizens work as migrant labour in Russia, where they are often subjected to discrimination and harassment by law enforcement bodies. Konsta’s songs are all in Uzbek, although he admits that he could have been more popular if he continued to write songs in Russian. “My life is incomprehensible to Russians. Our world is Uzbek,” said, Konsta explaining his decision to write songs in Uzbek in an interview with Gazeta.uz, one of the biggest media outlets in Uzbekistan.

Here is the full video of Konsta’s interview with Gazeta.uz.

In his most viewed song on YouTube “Odamlar nima deydi?” (What will people say?), Konsta tackles the country’s social issue where many feel the need to seek public approval for their personal life decisions. Konsta describes parents’ disapproval of their children’s unconventional professional choices and the pressure they exert on daughters to tolerate domestic violence and not to divorce, due to fear of social stigma.

Here is a music video of the song “Odamlar nima deydi”.

In another song related to social pressure titled “To’y” (Wedding), Konsta appears as an ordinary Uzbek man who spent all the money he saved while working as migrant labour in Russia and got into debt to organize an extravagant, large wedding. His next move is to return to Russia and continue working as migrant labour to pay off his debt. Through this song, Konsta brings light to the tradition of organizing lavish weddings most people in Uzbekistan cannot afford, forcing them to go into debt.

Here is a music video of the song “To’y”.

Konsta also reacts to political scandals in the country. On March 6, he released a song called “Sariq jiletka” (Yellow vest) in response to the news that the authorities were planning to force pedestrians, schoolchildren, and bikers to wear light-reflecting jackets at night to prevent car accidents. The Ministry of Interior rolled back its plans after a public backlash. In the song, Konsta appears as a corrupt official who came up with this idea, so he can make money on the sale of vests and go to the Maldives on vacation.

Here is a music video of the song “Sariq jiletka”.

Konsta stands out in the sea of Uzbek singers for his creativity and for tackling social and political issues. His conscious rap is a mirror where Uzbek society can see its struggles.

For a full playlist of Konsta’s music, see GV’s Spotify playlist below, and find a full array of diverse music on our Spotify profile.

Music Retrospects #2: Tracy Chapman, class consciousness and womanism

These series were written by Cedric McCoy and republished here with the author’s and publisher’s consent. The 3-part series were originally published on The Michigan Daily webpage on Feb. 8, 21 and 23.


For Black History Month 2023, I will be publishing a mini-series of short music reviews under the title “Protest Music Retrospects.” The aim of this series is to both revisit some of the most pivotal moments in Black protest music history and to shed light on overlooked Black figures and musics, specifically those of Black women, that have contributed to socially-conscious popular culture. The reviews will be a mix of musical critique as well as historical and historiographical analysis of the works and their responses in media. I first highlighted Sister Souljah’s 360 Degrees of Power; for this next entry, I will continue the series with Tracy Chapman’s 1988 debut and self-titled album, Tracy Chapman.

Arguably, Tracy Chapman isn’t exactly “overlooked.” It is one of the best-selling albums of all time (having sold over 20 million copies worldwide and certified platinum six times over) and earned Chapman Grammys for Best Contemporary Folk Album, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (for “Fast Car”) and Best New Artist. However, I argue that the political themes and lyricism of Tracy Chapman is frequently missed in discussions of protest music of the era; released in the same year as N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton and Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, the surviving narrative is that Black male rappers and emcees pioneered the new resistance. The intrigue of “Fast Car” quickly became what Tracy Chapman was known for, and in combination with the fact that she was a Black woman making folk music in the late 20th century, the politicization of her lyrics was lost on a majority of audiences. As a result of her commercial success, contemporary accounts strip Chapman of her evocative and powerful commentary.

Tracy Chapman is, at its core, an album that documents the experience of a working class Black woman. Chapman, in a traditional folk style, often positions herself as a narrator outside of the story actively being told; even so, she weaves her knowledge and experiences into the narrative. For example, in the lead track “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution,” Chapman discusses the rumblings of an impoverished and overexploited working class interested in a “revolution,” wherein “poor people gonna rise up / and take their share / poor people gonna rise up / and take what’s theirs.” 

Raised by a working-class family in Cleveland, Chapman knows firsthand the challenges of working-class Americans and is able to dictate the experience with a certain specificity: “While they’re standing in the welfare lines” in the first verse becomes “I’ve been standing in the welfare lines” in the third verse. “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” sets the tone for an album unmistakably entrenched in the struggle.

Every subsequent track on the album continues this thread of what Southern University professor Dr. Rasheedah Jenkins describes as “unabashed critique of the economic system’s virulence during the Reagan-Bush administration and its global influence.” In songs like the album’s lead single “Fast Car” and “She’s Got Her Ticket,” Chapman tells stories of women desperately seeking an escape from poverty and lack of opportunity; “Why?” and “Behind the Wall” comment on violence against women, both domestically and globally; “Mountain O’ Things” critiques American materialism and exploitative labor practices and so on. In each track Chapman addresses these issues with nuance and empathy, directly personifying the resistance of capitalist oppressions and state violence.

Even beyond her searing indictments of American society and western greed, there is something unique and admirable about Chapman’s lyrics that I find especially worth noting. In contrast to the hyper-masculine and chauvinistic aggression found in some of her male contemporaries, Chapman centers love and understanding in her narratives. She connects herself to the stories she tells — not to center herself, but to engage the reader in a more personal listening of her lyrics. In “If Not Now…” Chapman spends the first few verses presenting economic and social liberation as the ruling class’s unrequited love for the working class, but then presents this line in the final verse: “Now love’s the only thing that’s free / we must take it where it’s found.” Immediately this could be read as a continuation of her running metaphor, that we should seize opportunity when it finds us; I argue that Chapman intends a second, more literal meaning with the lyric. In the same way that she has humanized the working-class stories throughout the album, Chapman humanizes our fundamental desire to be acknowledged and cared for. I feel that the album’s final track, “For You,” can also be understood in this double-meaning framework.

Essentially, I encourage the reader to see Chapman’s debut album through a womanist lens – especially regarding the second definition ascribed to the term by its originator, Alice Walker: 

“A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.”

While Chapman has never publicly disclosed information about her sexual preferences or identity, we do know that there is potential to see her life and work through a queer lens (ironically, as a result of Alice Walker herself disclosing her and Chapman’s affairs). I borrow musicologist Suzanne Cusick’s framework for understanding music through a lesbian lens from her article “On A Lesbian Relationship with Music” to extend this analysis. Cusick argues that a (assumedly oversimplified but fundamental in nature) lesbian relationship lacks the traditionally heterosexual power dynamic: 

(A woman) is non-power: to be in love with her is to be in love with, to be fascinated by, to be drawn to that which is non-power. With her, a self who is also non-power is more likely to create a relationship based on non-power…No one in the relationship has been formed to be the power figure, although all can play at it.

In short, Cusick claims that queer relationships (but that specifically of lesbians) defy a hierarchical, vertical power structure in favor of a horizontal, fluid power structure. I find this lens, applied to music specifically as Cusick later does, useful in understanding Chapman’s work because it lacks that exact power dynamic protest music had come to embody in that moment: in contrast to a prophet or speaker for Black America to rally behind and listen to, Chapman simply tells her story as-is and lends her ear to her working-class comrades.  Chapman, in the face of multiple jeopardy systemic oppressions, advocates intracommunal love and the liberation of all through mutual efforts. There is no appeal to violence or physical rage, as such devices are unnecessary in her approach; rather, it is more useful to understand one another and build solidarity in absence of hierarchical power structures, both in terms of race and gender but as well as sexuality.

Tracy Chapman will be remembered by, as it already is, Chapman’s transparent and relatable lyricism as well as her politically informed criticisms. In addition to the genre-defining musicality and emotion displayed throughout Chapman’s recordings, I hope that the album is revered for its revolutionary draw to love and its commitment to radical empathy within the canon of Black protest music for generations to come. The album is potent with themes, analysis and lyrics to pick apart for at least a few more decades.

MiC Assistant editor Cedric Preston McCoy can be reached at cedmccoy@umich.edu.

Indigenous Rappers And More Mexican Musicians Featured On Marvel’s Wakanda Forever Soundtrack

Oaxaca native, Mare Advertencia Lirika, who’s been rapping for nearly two decades, along with fellow musician and activist Vivir Quintana, wrote the song ‘Árboles bajo del mar’ (Trees beneath the sea) about defending territories and the rights of native people.

The song is now part of the soundtrack for the new Marvel feature, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, sharing the spotlight with artists such as Rihanna, Burna Boy, Stormzy and more.

The movie is inspired by Mesoamerican cultures and has several other Mexican artists featured on the album, such as Snow Tha Product, AlemánCalle x Vida, ADN Maya Colectivo and Blue Rojo.

You can hear all the songs and stream the new album in its entirety below.