Firuz at Tajik-language blog wrote an article about the hip hop culture in Tajikistan. In Tajikistan hip hop is a new phenomenon and in comparison to other countries of former Soviet Union Tajikistan is probably the only country among them where this culture is the least developed. However, the Tajik hip-hop singers believe that hip-hop has a prosperous future in Tajikistan. Firuz provides us with a small excerpt from the song of DJ Izmail sang in Tajik:

“Who says that there is no Tajik hip-hop?
While DJ Izmail is alive,
In all parts of the city,
In your street,
In my street,
In the street of the other,
The Tajik rap will live!”

Probably, I could not make a good translation of this part of DJ Izmail’s song but these words show the optimism of the Tajik hip-hop singers. Recently there have been announced the first hip-hop contest among the young singers of Tajikistan. Actually it is an open contest and rappers from other countries are also welcomed. They call it “батл (batl)”. That is how the English word “battle” used by the Tajik rappers. The “battle” is organized by the owners of the only website in Tajikistan dedicated to hip-hop culture. Firuz says that shortly after the announcement of the contest about forty applications were submitted.

Ismoil Ismoilov or DJ Izmail is one of the best rappers in the country. He says that there are many talented rappers in Tajikistan but they do not have good conditions to record their songs. “We help these singers as much as we can and sometimes render our sound-recording studio to them free of charge. There were invited professional hip-hop singers from Kazakhstan, Russia and Austria for the appraisal of the contesters. Among them are some good producers and hope they choose some of talented local singers and provided them with good conditions for self-realization”, says DJ Izmail.

The first contest among the hip-hop singers will be conducted in Russian. The singers will use Russian lyrics in their songs. According to DJ Izmail, it is difficult to rap in Tajik, the Tajik rappers are not used to rap in their native language yet. The other reason to conduct contest in Russian language is that the juries are coming from other countries and they don’t know Tajik. However DJ Izmail promises to do everything to promote the hip-hop music in Tajik and organize this kind of events in native language.

DJ Izmail says that there are 90 bands and individual hip-hop singers in Dushanbe. These singers experience lots of difficulties while organizing concerts and other events. Despite all the difficulties these rappers are very optimistic and thanks to rap they can tell about their everyday hardships in their life. “Rap makes of the youngsters the real men. Rap is against terror and drugs”, says Izmail.

Firuz says that obviously the hip-hop music has its rivals. According to the representative of Tajik national music, Munira Shahidi, rappers in Tajikistan try to praise the western values, what is not welcomed by many people. Other representatives of national music are also skeptical of hip-hop music, mostly because the lyrics of the songs are full of four-letter words.