jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 03/01/2022 - Alyona's Paradise, Touring Supply Chain Shortages, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Little Simz, Avril Lavigne...

After [the 2013 Euromaidan protests] and the war, Ukrainians started to ask each other what it was that made them who they were. They understood that going to Russia meant churning out pop music. And going to Europe meant doing it like people do it in Europe. So instead they bought recording equipment and started looking for their own thing, their own breath of fresh air. Open in browser Tuesday March 01, 2022 Ukrainian rapper Alyona Alyona at Eurosonic Noorderslag in Groningen, the Netherlands, Jan. 16, 2020. (Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images) quote of the day "After [the 2013 Euromaidan protests] and the war, Ukrainians started to ask each other what it was that made them who they were. They understood that going to Russia meant churning out pop music. And going to Europe meant doing it like people do it in Europe. So instead they bought recording equipment and started looking for their own thing, their own breath of fresh air." - Alyona Savranenko, aka Alyona Alyona rantnrave:// Alyona's Paradise ALYONA SAVRANENKO, better known around Europe as ALYONA ALYONA, discovered her calling when she heard COOLIO's "GANGSTA'S PARADISE" at age 12; her fate was sealed some time after that when her father came home from a work trip with a copy of THE EMINEM SHOW. Alyona's head was full of words—Ukrainian words—and rappers, she quickly learned, got to use a lot more of them than pop singers did. There weren't a lot of female rappers in central Ukraine though, or anywhere in Ukraine for that matter. "Yuck! Women must make borscht" was a typical reaction to her early efforts. There were concessions at first, as this excellent 2019 profile by Vogue's LIANA SATENSTEIN explains. Alyona kept her music mostly to herself while she worked various day jobs including kindergarten teacher. Later when she started sharing her music, she rapped in Russian, which wasn't her first language but was commonly spoken in Ukraine and was the language of the much more established music industry in Moscow, where the records her friends listened to were made. But Ukraine's Euromaidan protests of 2013 changed that. A wave of nationalism came with a growing interest in the Ukrainian language, and Alyona was free to be the poet she wanted to be. "It's a beautiful, soft, tender, more poetic language," better suited to rapping, she told the Independent. "I want to rap about everyday life, in my own language," she offered to the New York Times. Although the title of her 2019 debut album, PUSHKA, has a mildly vulgar meaning in local slang, she raps clean, avoiding both the language and the themes of the American rappers she first fell in love with. Her subjects, in raps whose "lightning-fast flow" reminded the Times of AZEALIA BANKS, are the ordinary Ukrainian lives of herself and her friends. Her music can sound minimalist tough or bubblegum sassy—or, if the story warrants, serious and somber, to take one particular track that resonates in February 2022. This week, the cover images of many of her videos on YouTube, which have millions of views, are blue and yellow cards with the message, "While you are watching this video, ukrainian people are dying from russian attack. STOP IT!" At the top of her YouTube page is a video message asking for military and humanitarian aid for her country. "I urge all of you to... not allow Russia to seize our country," the English translation ends, "because after they will go to your home." There are tens of millions of people under attack in Ukraine. Alyona Alyona is but one of them. A huge tip of the hat to this crowdsourced spreadsheet of Ukrainian artists and labels and, especially, this Twitter thread by Bard College professor MARIA SONEVYTSKY for leading me to some of the artists whose stories and music I'll be sharing in the coming days. Rest in Peace NICKY TESCO, lead singer of British punk/new-wave band the Members, whose calling card was the 1979 single "Sound of the Suburbs." - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator small time heroes Vogue RETRO READ: Meet Alyona Alyona, Ukraine's Most Unlikely Rap Star By Liana Satenstein Even if you don't know a word of Ukrainian, you'll be hooked on rapper Alyona Savranenko. She spits like a car revving up and rocketing off full speed until suddenly, you're carried away. Rolling Stone 'I'm Destroyed Inside': Ukraine's Flourishing Music Scene Faces an Existential Threat By David Browne Musicians in Ukraine say that a thriving, diverse scene of all genres grew in their country after the 2014 revolution. Now, Russia's invasion has put its future at risk. Billboard Supply-Chain Shortages Create Touring Industry 'Nightmare': 'Everything's More Expensive' By Steve Knopper Artists are eager to get back on the road, but personnel, trucks and stages are hard to find - will profits be in short supply as well? NPR Music Hurray for the Riff Raff's Alynda Segarra, a 'recovering lone wolf,' in conversation By Ann Powers Hurray for the Riff Raff's new album was inspired, in part, by adrienne maree brown's book Emergent Strategy. NPR Music's Ann Powers moderates the first-time meeting of far-flung soulmates. sisgwenjazz Only urban moegoes believe CDs no longer matter By Gwen Ansell We should be concerned when a CD printer closes in a country like South Africa. New Orleans Public Radio With the return of Mardi Gras marching bands, New Orleans' streets are full of magic By Aubri Juhasz The bands may be smaller this year, but students say they're prepared to keep the culture alive and entertain hundreds of thousands of revelers. Variety Brit Beat: Little Simz Plots Post-BRITs Stardom, With an Eye to the U.S. By Mark Sutherland "The crossover has started," Little Simz's manager tells Variety. I Care If You Listen innova Recordings' Bay Area Pilot Helps Artists in the Creation and Promotion of their Music By Jasmine Ivanna Espy In one of the most cutthroat entertainment sectors that has countless stories of 360 deals, shelving projects, payment inequity, and more, innova Recordings is redefining its role in the development, creation, distribution, and marketing of its artists. Culture Notes of an Honest Broker What Is the Oldest Music Company in the World? By Ted Gioia The music industry is a fickle business, but there are valuable lessons to be learned by studying companies that have kept the music going for centuries. The Cut One Night in the Straightosphere By Brock Colyar Adventures at a Sunday night Diplo show at New York's new outer-space-themed midtown megaclub Nebula. life on earth NPR Some Russian performing artists are speaking out against Putin By Anastasia Tsioulcas A number of Russian stars from the performing arts world are using their voices and international platforms to denounce the invasion of Ukraine and speak up against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Music Business Worldwide Why the streaming revolution is unfinished business By Kim Bayley The next challenge is not technological. It's about fairness and sustainability, writes Kim Bayley, CEO of the UK's Entertainment Retailers Association. Zogblog Hip-Hop's Highest-Paid Artists Of 2021 By Zack O'Malley Greenburg Jay-Z and Kanye West towered over the field with dueling nine-figure paydays, but hip-hop's top acts all found ways to flourish amid a second pandemic year. Billboard Marc Geiger's SaveLive Raised $112M in Past Year to Buy Concert Venues By Taylor Mims and Dave Brooks The former WME exec's company now has a $135 million war chest to acquire businesses hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The New Yorker Cate Le Bon's Strange Journey Home By Margaret Talbot How a Welsh artist making sharp, mysterious songs found herself in the desert. Stereogum Avril Lavigne Actually Made A Pop-Punk Album This Time By Rachel Brodsky "Love Sux "is Avril's most energetic record *ever*.  The New York Times Neil Diamond Sells Entire Catalog to Universal Music By Ben Sisario The musician behind ubiquitous hits like "Sweet Caroline" sold his songwriting rights and recordings in another major deal. NME US live music scene: 'Without government support, you won't have independent venues in America' By Erica Campbell National Independent Venue Association, Squirrel Flower, and Chicago's Empty Bottle told NME what indie venues still need during the pandemic. The Forty-Five In memory of Jamal Edwards, a musical pioneer for the millennial age By Jenessa Williams It is directly because of the groundwork that folk like Jamal Edwards laid in the late 00's that black-British culture is getting its flowers in huge spaces, shaping the charts and filling venues once thought to be solely the domain of rock stars of US rap behemoths.  The Guardian Skibadee changed the very nature of what it meant to be an MC or rapper in the UK By Joe Muggs The MC, who has died aged 47, laid the foundations for grime, drill and all that followed -- there is not a UK rapper today that doesn't owe him a creative debt. what we're into Music of the day "Рибки (Fish)" Alyona Alyona Her 2018 breakout single. Video of the day "Alyona Alyona – the Ukranian Rap Sensation" Arte Tracks Music | Media SUBSCRIBE Suggest a link "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" Jason Hirschhorn CEO & Chief Curator HOME | ABOUT | SETS | PRESS Redef Group Inc. LA - NY - Everywhere Copyright ©2021 UNSUBSCRIBE or MANAGE MY SUBSCRIPTION