Posts from Meet Uncle Zhenya. Auto-translated

Let me start with a small prelude. When people ask about my musical preferences and learn that I listen to "rap," they often look very surprised, as if to say, "How can that be? I thought you were an intelligent person with good taste, and you listen to such garbage." And I understand them. Foreign rap is technically proficient but rarely interesting, and most Russian rap is just music for uncultured, dim-witted people and thugs. But we shouldn't forget that "stereotypes are a manifestation of ignorance," in the sense that rap itself is an interesting genre, and in skilled hands, it can become poetry set to a rhythm, rather than just an attempt by people who don't understand music to sing something. There's a website called Hip-hop.ru where so-called battles are held annually. They consist of 7-9 rounds, and in each round, a specific theme is given, which participants must explore. The best ones move on. What started as an amateur gathering has turned into a place where talents are discovered. Now, about Uncle Zhenya, and why I want to tell you about him. This person with such an original nickname is 35 years old, holds a Ph.D. in physics and mathematics, and lives in Novosibirsk. What distinguishes him from other rappers is not the use of the letter "r" (he lisps), but his incredibly intelligent lyrics, which have made him a true internet phenomenon (he's very popular on the Russian internet). His main theme is similar to Lermontov's poetry: loneliness, honesty, and justice, and other "eternal" values. But unlike other rappers, all his words are backed by years of hard life and stacks of books he has read. Almost all of his texts are difficult to understand at first, primarily because of the terrible, monotonous delivery. The only thing that saves him is his emotionality. Once you catch the thread, you stop paying attention to the technical aspects. Secondly, he often uses references to various works and quotes, so you don't immediately understand what he means, and it seems like it's just "rhyme for the sake of rhyme." But there are no empty phrases in his lyrics; it just takes time to understand them. To help listeners understand what he wanted to say, Zhenya sometimes even had to explain his tracks on the forum. A month ago, the 8th official battle ended, and after going through 9 rounds, Zhenya won. The internet's opinion about him is divided. For many, he has become a true icon. I read posts from people who said that "these tracks completely changed my life and all my values." Others call him a "boring jerk," and they also have some basis for that. Here's a good article about him, and it also includes his tracks (not all of them): http://21region.org/index.php?newsid=19732 And here you can download all his tracks at once: http://hip-hop.ru/forum/archive/index.php/t-192109.html So, in this thread, I want to hear your opinion.