BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : RACIAL STATUS AND BLACK AFRICA IDENTITY IN UKRAINE :

                                                                  BLACK         SOCIAL        HISTORY                                                                         Racial Status and Black Africa Identity In Ukraine

Taking into consideration the significant economic migrations into and out of Ukraine, this
project questions the correlation between the present popularity of hip-hop and growing
articulations of “blackness” and “whiteness” in Kharkiv. It further explicates the ways in which
music, migration, and the market economy influence race and class identity formation in light of
economic transitions in contemporary Ukraine. Kharkiv’s interracial hip-hop clubs offer insights
regarding how racial difference is negotiated among the local youth and migrants who attend
hip-hop parties. African musicians are drawn to the hip-hop genre because of the music’s
popularity in Africa and the United States and because of its global positioning as a genre of
social critique. Common themes in Afro-Ukrainian hip-hop texts and music videos include issues
of racial violence, economic insecurity, the undoing of racial stereotypes, and inter-racial love.
This context-based musical analysis offers nuanced interpretations regarding how present-day
youth deal with interracial issues in a racially intolerant post-socialist society.
Relevance and Contribution to Field
Various media sources report that Ukraine’s borders have been traversed by anywhere between
one hundred thousand to six million dark-skinned migrant workers, refugees, and asylum
seekers from China, Central and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the African continent.
Though it is not possible to determine the accuracy of such figures based on the data available,
the gradation in numbers is significant enough to argue that the ethnic and racial composition of
Ukraine is changing at a very rapid pace. These changes are very evident in all spheres of life
such as the changing multiracial make-up of bazaars, universities, and religious institutions. My
research reveals a direct correlation between such processes and the increase in racialized
images within the Ukrainian music industry, which has grown exponentially over the last few
years with the help of stricter anti-piracy laws and a burgeoning indie record market. Music
production and musical appropriations of Western genres have also increased due to increased
access to world music markets via the Internet and the ability to download music as MP3s.
Because these economically-tied cultural changes have happened at breakneck speed, this
research project focuses on how the quickly improving economic status of varying groups of
people plays out in terms of racial relations that are mediated through emerging musical forms,
hip-hop among them. More specifically, this project concerns itself with young people, ages 14
to 22, in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, home to many universities that have historically
drawn foreign students from countries such as Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria. Kharkiv has
retained its Soviet-era status as a multiracial town, particularly since the 1990s with the
professionalization of the sprawling Barabashov bazaar that draws economic opportunists from
China, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Africa. Unlike most cities in Ukraine, Kharkiv is physically
differentiated by its increasing migrant population, which contributes to a varied musical scene
not comparable to other cities of iits size such as Kyiv or Odesa.
Personal interviews conducted with African university students and African economic migrants
who work as traders at the Barabashov bazaar have allowed me to position the racially-imbued
discourse that surrounds hip-hop in Ukraine into a broader context of post-socialist political,
economic, and socio-cultural understandings regarding citizenship rights, cultural rights,
pluralism, equality, and inclusion. The various places where hip-hop is created and experienced,
whether dance clubs, recording studios, or the university, are connected through a complex web
of social interaction mediated by age, skin-color, and physical aesthetics.
The hip-hop movement in Kharkiv emerged from the underground in the mid-1990s with the
city’s famous group Tanok na Maidani Kongo (Dance on Congo Square) whose international
popularity has earned the city the title of “hip-hop capitol” of Ukraine. Though the growing music
industry in Ukraine is primarily situated in Kyiv, male musicians who run small independent hiphop
recording studios in Kharkiv learn from each other how to produce, market, and earn profits
from the music they record and release. Most studios are make-shift and have little more than a
home computer and a sound booth with a microphone (for instance, the walls of a studio on
Pushkinska St. are soundproofed with twenty pairs of old jeans). An hour of recording time costs
between 50-100 Hryvnias (approximately $10-$20 USD) and everyone is welcome to cut a
track, regardless of race, gender, or age. Migrant workers and students from Africa, in
particular, have contributed greatly to such developments, offering validity to the scene as
foreigners and, more importantly, as English speakers who assist with hip-hop lyrics and add
different musical aesthetics into the mix. As racism against Africans in Ukraine increases,
particularly in Kyiv, where much anti-African brutality goes undocumented by the media, African
students in Kharkiv rely on their local interracial hip-hop crews (groups of friends) to protect
them from attack at clubs and in public spaces. Aside from attending university lectures, most
African students avoid central public spaces due to discrimination that goes unchecked in the
media and in every day relations.
Because of the constant fear of racial attack, the involvement of Nigerians, Kenyans, and
Ugandans in Kharkiv’s local hip-hop scene infuses the subculture with a strong civil rights
stance. Song-texts speak out against racial intolerance and focus on the beauty of black bodies,
evidenced by an excerpt from the song “Club Fever” sung by the Black Beatles, a hip-hop group
comprised of students from Kenya who recorded it at Kharkiv’s youth-run Age Music Studios in
2006: “Pump it up, feel the fever… Strong combination, brains, means, lyrical ammunition, no
competition to my lyrical infection… I ain’t your passion, I’m your poison, can you see my
vision? Better you feel my venom, I’m the real Kenyan-born, I’m hitting you raw, more than you
wish for… From Kenya to Ukraina, maximum kachennia.” The song is aggressive, much more
so than the Ukrainian-language hip-hop from the afore-mentioned Tanok Na Maidani Kongo,
who unlike hip-hop groups in Russia, do not mimic the music’s more aggressive U.S.-based
sources. In Afro-Ukrainian hip-hop, the debate is physical, with an accent on black male bodies
traversing spaces traditionally reserved in Ukraine for people with white-skin. It’s unapologetic in
its approach and offers an “accept me or move out of my way” alternative to white listeners who
accept the singer in sonic form. Significant regarding these English lyrics is that very few
audience members understand them. This gives a space for the singers to say what they want
to while not directly engaging in antagonistic racially charged exchanges with their supporters.
Though the hip-hop scene is not big, its significance lies in its broad capacity to mediate racial
relations among the youth. Many Africans do not participate in hip-hop parties due to religious
practices and an interesting comparative study would be to analyze the role of music in the
growing number of African churches in Kharkiv. In whatever form, deeper ethnographic
understandings of migrant and minority experiences in everyday contexts are necessary to
ensure that policy makers and U.S. aid programs target the most salient points of racial
discrimination. With regard to the fast-changing class distinctions in Ukraine, it is imperative to
assess the long-term economic effects of present multicultural strategies aimed to increase
migrant and minority representation in the public sphere. “Africans” must not erroneously be
grouped together in such policy initiatives. There is a strong distinction between African
migrants living on the edge of poverty and attempting to make a living as bazaar traders,
middle-class students (some on government scholarships) from Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria
(and other countries) who come to Ukraine to study, and the growing number of mulaty
(mulattos), mixed-race children who are increasingly identifying themselves as “Afro-
Ukrainians”, an identity promoted by musical personalities such as MTV personality Myroslav
Kuvaldin and singer Hajtana.
Research Methodology
Initial fieldwork conducted during the summers of 2007 and 2008 has helped solidify productive
fieldwork sites for the ongoing analysis regarding the relationship between socialization and
music-making within hip-hop. In my previous fieldwork trips, I familiarized myself and was
accepted into venues where such interactions take place, including professional and make-shift
studios, cafes, and university-based venues, such as extracurricular hip-hop dance classes
taught by African students for non-African students. The research trip on October 9-19, 2008,
while brief, was very productive because all students were on-site in Kharkiv. This situation
differs from my previous research conducted in the summertime when many African students
leave Kharkiv to work abroad or return to Africa. During the IREX-funded research trip to
Kharkiv, I conducted interviews at the youth-run Age Music Studios where a significant percent
of non-major label hip-hop CDs are recorded and produced. I gathered information about recent
public concerts, festivals, and competitions. This information is not readily available in the mass
media and I asked specific questions about corporate and government sponsored breakdance,
BMX biking, rap, and graffiti competitions (BMX biking, while not a traditional component of hiphop
culture in the United States, is, alongside snowboarding, skateboarding, and other new
professionalized, class-distinct sports, part of hip-hop culture and racialized class discourse in
Ukraine). These competitive events are announced via poster displays at hip-hop clothes shops,
alleys, and subway stops, and are public sites where young people gather and train to compete
in broader national and international competitions. These events are important peer venues in
the sense that they reinforce a generational sense of community while emphasizing individual
success and originality. Whether rap or breakdance, the stress is placed on uniqueness of
expression and not mimicry of U.S. standards. However, these events are modeled on Westernstyle
competition events with their emphasis on logos, marketing techniques, and the strong
association of economics with cultural expression. Young attendees learn marketing skills
through trial and error, working in respective groups to carve out a competitive space for
themselves in terms of physical success and professionalized image-making aimed to garner
corporate support and other forms of sponsorship and financial return. Though I did not attend
any competitions while in Kharkiv as I have done in the past, I participated in hip-hop dance
rehearsals at Kharkiv University and conducted follow-up interviews with interlocutors at the
Zolotaia Rybka (Golden Fish) breakdance studio where young people train for breakdance
competitions. The breakdance environment, a key component to hip-hop culture, is a space of
positive physical and emotional reinforcement for teenagers, many of whom stress the
importance of physical health and claim that their involvement with breakdance helps keeps
them away from substance abuse.
While in Ukraine, I also kept in close contact via phone with interlocutors in Kyiv, Lviv, and
Uzhhorod with whom I have worked on previous trips and with fellow ethnomusicologists with
whom I have collaborated on an earlier phase of this project since May, 2008. My colleagues in
ethnomusicology, Olya Kolomyyets (Lviv), Vera Madiar-Novak (Uzhhorod), Iryna Klymenko
(Kyiv), and Yaryna Romaniuk (Kharkiv) have continued to monitor developments regarding race
relations in the media and the prevailing use of racial stereotypes in song-texts and in the
marketing of popular music. Towards the end of my stay in Ukraine, I spent one day in Lviv and
one day in Uzhhorod to meet with scholars Olya Kolomyyets and Vera Madiar-Novak. In
Uzhhorod, I also met with a colleague who asked not to be named in this report because he
feared for his safety in light of his research on border migration issues. He shared information of
unconfirmed reports regarding on-going killings of illegal migrants along Ukraine’s western
border, particularly in wooded areas around Uzhhorod. These killings are allegedly committed
by border mafia who are bribed by migrants to transport them from Ukraine into the European
Union via forest paths. My questions about this to friends and colleagues in Uzhhorod brought
up great anxiety and all refrained from commenting on the topic out of fear for their safety.
Research Findings and Preliminary Conclusions
While U.S. cultural theorists who draw on a black/white binarism in their study of other cultures
are often critiqued for allegedly imposing an analytic approach that serves as a marker of the
historic particularity of American segregation, my research shows that a globalizing political
economy plays a significant role in encouraging the rise of binary racial identities in migrant
destinations such as Kharkiv that are witnessing the rise of a sizeable middle class. Ukrainians
are experiencing a growing self-awareness as “white” Europeans, an identity that is being
countered by a rise in performative expressions that signify new understandings of “black”
identities among the growing number of dark-skinned migrants in post-Soviet Ukraine. As states
Ugandan migrant Rastaman Davis, lead singer of the Kyiv-based hip-hop/reggae band
Chornobryvtsi (The Black Browed) originally based in Kharkiv, “With our music, we are trying to
show the Ukrainians that it is not bad, and not so difficult, to live together as one people. For us,
when we just came to the country, we visited some villages where foreigners are not common at
all. But when we are on TV, we show these people that there are foreigners not simply surviving
(vyzhyvaiut, a term commonly used to index post-socialist economic hardship), but living well in
Ukraine and we are proud of it” (personal interview). Davis’s emphasis on migrant financial
success attests to the importance of economics in light of increasingly racialized discourses on
social inclusion and exclusion in the post-Soviet sphere.
Hip-hop offers a perspective on ways in which young people in hip-hop relate socio-economic
status vis-à-vis global and local understandings of “blackness” and “whiteness”. Hip-hop
parties function as events were local youths encourage African migrants and/or students to
dominate the space physically and culturally. Non-African participants emulate their African
friends for their DJ-ing and dance skills, a phenomenon that I witnessed while attending a CDrelease
party in Kharkiv’s Black Bear Club. To a large extent, African students and migrants are
accepted in the hip-hop circuit because they validate the hip-hop scene by speaking English
and being physically black, two defining features of African-American identity. In fact, many
locals refer to Africans as African-Americans, partly as a result of popular U.S. media in Ukraine
that projects a general association of dark-skin and racial difference with American society. This
situation leads to continued misunderstandings of and insensitivities toward racial issues
regarding everyday experiences of African migrant workers, African middle-class university
students, and Afro-Ukrainians (children of mixed marriages). This blurring of identity and the
fusing of people’s various experiences into one policy bracket has contributed to further
problems regarding issues of physical violence, police brutality, and racialized socio-economic
discrimination in Ukraine’s urban contexts.
It seems that the increasing racism against blacks is rooted in local fears of potential job loss.
The growing number of Nehry (Negroes) is perceived as evidence that the Ukrainian
government has little control over the borders of the nation-state and is perceived as not
protecting the economy and jobs from outsider domination. Hip-hop seems to defuse such fears
among young people by creating spaces where they can engage socially with African friends
while at the same time reaffirming their “white” identity by consuming African-American music
culture. Hip-hop clubs, and the very significant dance component in hip-hop, contribute to high
levels of interracial interaction, witnessed by the number of inter-racial young couples dating on
the scene. The physical presence of the black DJ, the black dancer, and the English-speaking
African in the hip-hop milieu adds cultural capital to black identity and allows for the social
integration of young Africans and Afro-Ukrainians in Kharkiv.
Suggestions for Future Research
Taking into consideration the overwhelming role that popular music has played in Ukrainian
politics and social networks since independence in 1991, and during the 2004 Orange
Revolution in particular, there is an astonishing lack of scholarship on this subject in Ukrainian,
Russian, or English-language scholarship. Future research in the field of ethnomusicology must
take into account the enormous changes in the popular music industry that have taken place in
light of increased media networks and relative economic stability. Such analyses can shed light
on the nuanced ways that music, as a polysemous form of cultural expression, influences
individual and group perceptions of social processes and offers a venue for social critique.
Moving beyond the official media circuit, skilled ethnographers must tap into underground music
movements to analyze the ideological spectrum among the youth in urban contexts. As with the
case of hip-hop, images that are circulated out of context from places such as the United States
have positive effects in terms of promoting individualism and entrepreneurship in Ukraine’s
growing economy. Simultaneously, they promote negative effects by reinforcing a white/black
class-based binary evident in U.S. cultural imagery that is mimicked out of context and
reinforced in Ukraine. Such varied interpretations reflect people’s understandings of political,
economic, and socio-cultural global signifiers that contribute to understandings of otherness on
the local level. Taken out of context, they are exploited by the growing media circuits in Ukraine
and reinforce a growing racial intolerance in the post-socialist sphere.
Recommendations for the US Policy Community
Research among African and non-African university students, and African economic migrants
who work as traders at urban bazaars has allowed me to position the racially-imbued discourse
that surrounds hip-hop in Ukraine into a broader context of post-socialist political, economic,
and socio-cultural understandings regarding citizenship rights, cultural rights, pluralism, equality,
and inclusion. The various places where hip-hop is created and experienced, whether dance
clubs, recording studios, or the university, are connected through a complex web of social
interaction mediated by age, skin-color, and physical aesthetics. An analysis of hip-hop as it is
appropriated with regard to its African-American identity, reveals a very complex and, in
general, a fearful attitude with regard to dark-skinned persons. This fear stems predominantly
from a general lack of education regarding racial difference and a misunderstanding of racial
images promoted on Ukrainian television via U.S. music videos and Hollywood movies. A
conscientious education effort regarding racial relations must be implemented in the school
curriculum so that children attending soccer games do not refer to African soccer players as
malpy (monkeys,) an expression I have heard at soccer matches in cities throughout Ukraine.
Broader nation-wide anti-racism campaigns are needed to educate the general public, whether
in the form of television ads, billboards (which to date reinforce the common stereotype of
African-American as musician), as well as in religious settings and public forums such as those
organized by the Nigerian preacher Bishop Sunday Adelaja in Kyiv.

Bishop Sunday