- Vladimir Putin has said that rap music is a threat to Russia, and that it should be regulated.
- He was speaking to his cultural advisors at the Council for Culture and Art on Saturday.
- He said: “Rap and other modern [forms of art] are rested upon three pillars: sex, drugs and protest.”
- Putin then suggested banning curse words in some cases.
- Several Russian rappers have been arrested in 2018, and some claim the police are specifically targeting rappers.
Vladimir Putin launched an attack on rap music in Russia on Saturday, arguing that it will lead the the “degradation” of Russia if left unchecked.
Putin, after a summit with cultural leaders, asked them to do everything they could to bring rap culture to heel.
At the Council for Culture and Art in St Petersburg, Putin said: “Rap and other modern [forms of art] are rested upon three pillars: sex, drugs and protest,” the Associated Press (AP) reported.
He said: “I am most worried about drugs. This is the way towards the degradation of a nation.”
Putin seemed to concede that banning rap altogether was not a reasonable solution.
According to AP, he said: "If it is impossible to stop it, it should be taken over and navigated in a particular way."
One of the changes Putin suggested was the introduction of rules for using curse words in music and online.
But in the same address Putin said he'd recently been told that swearing was just a part of Russian culture by an expert he consulted, AP wrote.
He used this analogy to describe curse words: "We have all sorts of body parts, and it's not like we put them on display all the time," AP reported.
Musicians have clashed with the Russian state before, most famously the band Pussy Riot, who were arrested in 2012 (and many times since.) The alleged poisoning of a Pussy Riot member in September 2018 has reignited the story.
Several rap music concerts in Russia have been shut down recently, and some performers have been arrested.
Rapper "Husky," who often raps about political corruption and police brutality, was jailed for 12 days for hooliganism after he performed a gig atop a car on November 21.
Rapper IC3PEAK - who has millions of video views online - has recently had concerts cancelled and been detained without a clear explanation, the BBC said.
Rapper Gone.Fludd said he had to cancel two rap concerts because of pressure from "every police agency you can imagine," CNBC quoted him as saying.
