Music genre
Mongolian rap, or Mongolian hip-hop, is a musical genre that appeared at the end of the 1980s in Mongolia, during a period in which the Mongolian communist regime was weakening and new opportunities for expression were developing. The Har Sarnai (Black Rose) group, created in 1991, entirely at odds with the existing musical standards, played a major role in the development of this style. At the beginning of the 2000s, a new generation of artists offered music with varied influences, but since then this diversity has tended to decrease somewhat with greater attention paid to the American model. Female rappers are rare due to social pressure.
Mongolian rap is a reappropriation of the styles of American hip-hop. It partly uses the same visual codes, such as the symbolic practice of dramatized conflict, loose sports clothing, jewelry, provocative behavior and images, "crews", etc. It also incorporates Mongolian cultural references such as Khöömii (throat singing) and Morin khuur, a traditional musical instrument. References to the Mongolian Empire and in particular to the figure of Genghis Khan, a nationalist guardian figure in modern Mongolian society, are frequent. Costumes and references to Mongolian society are evident in song titles and lyrics.
The subjects covered are very diverse, though many productions have romantic love as their subject. Political demands and protest messages are also often addressed. In certain songs, perhaps echoing American rap, women are objectified. Another theme regularly addressed is that of the authenticity of the Mongolian people. It is nationalist in nature, and has its roots in the search, since the fall of the communist regime, for a national identity. It involves the denunciation of mixing between Mongolians and other peoples, the fight against immigration (especially Chinese) and the rejection of foreign investments. A more moderate position promotes the development of the Mongolian people on their own and an end to blaming others.
The Mongolian language is widely used, but other languages, especially English, which is well-integrated into the local linguistic landscape, are also used. English is used as a tool that artists use and manipulate for various purposes, sometimes by means of the invention of anglicized Mongolian terms, to meet the needs of their artistic approaches. The use of coarse language is seen as making it possible to give more reality to texts and to better understand the urgency of certain messages.
With the development of the Internet and other technologies at the end of the 1990s, the spread of Mongolian rap has increased and some artists have had the opportunity to perform abroad.
Motivations and independence.
The communist regime for some time sought to ban access to Western popular music, wary of its ideological message. However, from the mid-1960s, it began to penetrate Mongolia from Mongolians returning to the country, spreading covertly among young people, first in the capital Ulaanbaatar. The Mongolian government then chose to support this musical movement by appropriating it and creating tightly controlled pop music groups. In the mid-1980s, these groups began to emancipate themselves, taking advantage of the political decline. Some of their songs were taken up by young demonstrators who, in 1990, in the midst of the collapse of the USSR, obtained the resignation of the communist authorities without violence. The transition to a democratic nation with a free market economy began. Government control over migration eased considerably and a significant part of the rural population invested in Mongolian cities, notably Ulaanbaatar, profiting from the employment opportunities offered by the new economic system. In 2010, more than two-thirds of Mongolians were urban and almost half the population lived in the capital.
Mongolia is one of the youngest countries in the world with 75% of the population under 35 years old. Unlike rural youth who still live in a traditional way of life, urban youth are largely open to external cultural influences, which have resulted in their multilingualism. If Western pop music was already accessible before 1990, the democratic revolution greatly facilitated access. Youth quickly took on these influences, moving from consumers of the global popular music scene to producers, experimenting with numerous musical styles, playing with these means of expression while adapting them to local contexts. Around 1990, some artists produced covers of popular Western songs in Mongolian or English. Others have integrated political and societal messages into their songs, such as the defense of democracy and freedom, or cultural ones such as the life of Genghis Khan. The opening of Mongolia to the West has led to the appearance of musical scenes creating a hybrid between foreign influences and typically Mongolian sounds, themes and styles. Foreign languages, notably English, and Mongolian are used together.
The economic difficulties resulting from the transition from a centralized and planned economy to a market economy, which notably made musical instruments very expensive, led to the disappearance of many groups in the early 1990s. At the end of this decade, the situation of artists previously dependent on Ulaanbaatar – rural communities not having the means to pay the ticket for a concert – improved with the emergence of computers, cable television, urban radios and the Internet. In addition, many companies have begun sponsoring artists, benefiting in return from association with these artists.
History.
Beginnings.
Rap, very different from typical Mongolian productions, had great difficulty establishing itself. The first Mongolian rap group was MC Boys, which appeared at the end of the 1980s. It addressed societal, philosophical subjects and rebellion. It was quickly followed, starting in 1991, by the group Har Sarnai (Black Rose). Formed by two brothers, it offered loud and raw music with house rhythms, which they describe as "techno-rap". Anthony J. Fonseca describes their style as a combination of disco and electronic dance music, Gregory Delaplace as an mixture of electronic music, rap and pop. They sang or even shouted in a guttural and growling voice (throat singing), constantly exchange words, dealing with the dark sides of life and love. They appeared on stage in fantastical costumes, militaristic uniforms, leather boots, face paint, long wigs and top hats, constantly moving with their fists and feet in the air. In the opinion of music historian Peter K. Marsh, they "marked a clear alternative to the refined, well-coiffed and well-behaved ballad singers that had dominated the musical main-stream until then" and "helped to clear a space for a new generation of rappers."
Development.
Rap began to truly find its audience from the beginning of the 2000s with the advent of a new generation to which the groups Digital and Tatar belonged. Young artists took advantage of rap music and hip-hop culture to translate their hopes, fears and frustrations into forms previously unavailable in mainstream music. Initially confined to the capital where it appeared, Mongolian rap then spread to the rest of the country, reaching rural youth.
Between 1997 and 2002, Dain ba Enkh (War and Peace) sang on political and societal subjects to music with Western RnB and disco-funk rhythms. Enkhtaivan, active during the 2000s, was the first solo RnB and rap singer. The groups MonTaRap, Lumino and the singer Aka Odko adopted RnB forms, the group Quiza used G-funk music, the rapper Gee and the group Ice Top use forms of Gangsta rap and hardcore rap. The group Vainquish chose a grand sound elaborated with synthesizers and a Roland TR-808 drum machine. Since the 2010s, XL, Metune and others have employed traditional instruments and throat singing. These two local elements are regularly associated with hip-hop music. Some female rappers appeared, such as the artists Gennie and Hulan.
In the early 2000s it was not uncommon for Mongolian lyrics to be based on well-known American music: ' (I'm Useless, 2001) by Ice Top used What's the Difference (1999) by Dr. Dre, and Lumino's ' ([She's] Someone Else, 2004), one of the group's big hits, borrows I Know What You Want (2003) from Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey. While the original lyrics of What's the Difference are about denigration and boasting, the Mongolian version expresses personal inadequacy. In the second case, the original text is an affirmation of erotic art while the Mongolian text is a rejected declaration of love. The influences are not only American. Thus, French rappers sometimes serve as a reference: MonTaRap in Minii Benz (2002) reinterprets "Ma Benz" (1998) by NTM, and Tatar uses in a song the alternation of a low, sometimes guttural voice, inspired by that of Joey Starr (NTM), and a strong and higher voice comparable to that of Akhenaton (IAM). The voice is considered a genuine instrument. In the early 2000s, Ice Top pushed it to its limits. Listening is, in the opinion of Grégory Delaplace, "musical experiment that takes language to its animal frontier".
Americanization.
The variety of style seen initially tended to diminish somewhat thereafter. Gregory Deplaplace wrote in 2014 that Mongolian rap became Americanized as it developed and approached Eminem's model. The singer Gee, with his even steady flow and rough but clear voice, is an embodiment of this. This movement does not prevent innovations in the use of language like "" (King for a day, 2010) by Rokit Bay. Finally, Gee himself sometimes uses traditional musical instruments such as the morin khuur in his music as well as khöömii (throat singing). Even a Mongolian artist like TulgaT who lives in Los Angeles and sings in American English maintains his own style.
Visual and cultural aspects.
Rap is a musical movement in which artists interact with the global forms of the hip-hop movement, mainly influenced by the culture of the African-American community where it was born in the 1970s, and which remains a defining reference, while rooted in the local social, economic, cultural and political context of the country where it is practiced. Mongolian rap is therefore a reappropriation of the styles of American hip-hop into a local context.
Visual references to American hip-hop.
The Mongolian rap scene uses visual references to the American hip-hop movement such as graffiti, which it appears on album covers or on murals, or the use of the American Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics label. Intended to warn of potentially shocking lyrics, it is misused by a number of rappers from America and other regions of the world to demonstrate quality.
Mongolian artists also create characters in the "gangsta" or "bad boy" style, which refer to the symbolic practice of dramatized conflict. They can thus dress in loose sports clothing, often bearing logos of American sports teams, or in tight-fitting leather jackets and pants, and some display jewelry (rings, necklace chains) or piercings and tattoos. Others have baseball caps worn backward or sideways. Rappers also adopt the stage gestures, swearing and obscene motions seen in Western rap videos and use visuals such as counting stacks of banknotes or imitating snorting cocaine in their music videos or on the covers of albums. This is for Mongolian rappers to "align their art with international hip-hop customs while also allowing them to differentiate it from other mainstream Mongolian pop song genres."
These provocations can have had a significant impact. In 2002, the music video for the song "" (Follow me and have fun) by the group Lumino showed the artists rapping among strippers in a club. The Minister of Justice, deeming it simply, banned its broadcast on television channels allied to the political party in power. The Streisand effect ensured the success of the video and the album and reinforced the group's rebellious image. A new version with "Censored" labels was released as a mockery.Among American rappers, the concept of collective, of gang or "crew", is borrowed from the language of the ghetto, and designates a kind of family helping each other and sharing a set of dress, body or gesture symbols. It is only partially taken up by Mongolian rap groups, generally failing to have such a defined system of identity marks. Among these crews, one of the most famous is Click Click Boom, which also includes a graffiti artist and a morin khuur player, which thus reinforces its aesthetic distinction. Another, created by Gennie, (The Hoodies), travels through rural Mongolia in search of talented young rappers.
Influence of Genghis Khan.
One of the characteristic features of Mongolian hip-hop is frequent references to the Mongol Empire. On a cover of the album "" by the group Lumino, the three members of the group, in "bad" "boy" posture, are dressed in warrior costumes harkening back to the time of Genghis Khan, the "bad boy of history". according to geographer Patrick