Hip Hop Ukraine: Music, Race, and African Migration

by Adriana N. Helbig

In Hip Hop Ukraine , we enter a world of urban music and dance competitions, hip hop parties, and recording studio culture to explore unique sites of interracial encounters among African students, African immigrants, and local populations in eastern Ukraine. Adriana N. Helbig combines ethnographic research with music, media, and policy analysis to examine how localized forms of hip hop create social and political spaces where an interracial youth culture can speak to issues of human rights and racial equality. She maps the complex trajectories of musical influence―African, Soviet, American―to show how hip hop has become a site of social protest in post-socialist society and a vehicle for social change.

Genres: Ukraine, History, Music

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Christian Matyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am going to start with what I consider the book’s primary flaw, which I don't usually like to do. It is written in very academic language. Meaning: dry as a bone. So, if you are looking for crackling writing, or find academic tones off putting, this book will have some obstacles.

But the content is SO phenomenal. This is why I mentioned that caveat up front: because it’s worth overcoming the hurdle.

I have been doing a personal tracing of American ideologies back through histories and cultural narratives. I am going in every direction; there is no single cultural root that I am favoring. But when the Russian invasion of the Ukraine began, I suddenly found myself concerned that I knew little to nothing about the back story. I decided to put aside my ongoing “how the heck did the American mindset of today develop over thousands of years” project and try to dig into a landscape utterly foreign.

But when I came across Helbig’s title I suddenly realized I found an ideal connection between my own historical and cultural reading as a launching point into Ukrainian culture and recent history.

This is where the book shined for me; encapsulating in vivid clarity the main flow of Ukrainian history since the Soviet era, as well as the social climate of the 2010s – which obviously preceded the Russian invasion. For her purposes, Helbig needs to get her audience (presumable American) familiar with the biggest picture of the Ukraine in order to delve into her niche topic. The result becomes a useful primer to contemporary Ukrainian attitudes around politics and culture.

The connection to Hip Hop as an international export gave a phenomenal touch point for the American sensibility to understand a foreign place and a foreign experience. Indeed, the online version came with nifty links to various audio tracks and videos that helped color the narrative. These brought the book to life as much as the fascination insight and research. While she may write with a dry, academic tone, the content is so colorful and rich that it quite makes up for her lack of colorful finesse.

Viewing a foreign culture from the viewpoint of how African diaspora intersects a music form honed and popularized in America was a brilliant way to balance the foreign and the familiar. Whether your interest lies in how American culture impacts other aspects of the world, the specific culture of contemporary Ukraine, or the global plight of African diaspora, this book will fascinate and enlighten.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 stars) A scholarly work that looks the evolution of hip-hop/rap/reggae in Ukraine. Yet, there are bigger themes, from the views of Russians/Ukrainians on Africans who came to that part of the world and are settling the land to how music is integrated into the life of Ukraine. This work was published in 2014, so many things have likely changed, especially how the Russians invaded in 2014 and 2022. Kharkiv is seen as the hotbed of Ukrainian Hip-Hop, but is that still the case given the city’s role in the current conflict? The work has some decent insight, but being a primarily scholarly work, it is a narrowly focused premise. It is not too dry a read, and will offer some good insight on Ukraine (hence why it was featured in the library), but it is not the end-all/be-all for works on Ukraine.

[Barron · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for the book on hip hop in Ukraine, this is it. As someone who originally got into Biggie while in Ukraine, in discussion with the substantial Nigerian diaspora there, this is a genuine topic with much to explore.