Hip-hop loving Putin gets down with Russian youth

Here's an ice-breaker for when Barack Obama next meets Vladimir Putin, the most powerful man in Russia. The American president, it seems, will be able to share his self-proclaimed love of hip-hop with the Russian prime minister.

Appearing on Muz-TV, an MTV-style channel, Putin told an audience of young graffiti artists, rappers, MCs and other exponents of hip-hop culture that although rap is "kind of rough, it has a social message dealing with the problems of the young". He congratulated the teenagers there for refining hip-hop with "Russian charm". He also described graffiti as real art, "fine and elegant".

Putin wore a white polo neck and casual grey zip-up jacket to the finals of Fight for Respect, a hip-hop competition filmed last week. His sole intention, according to his spokesman "was to promote a healthier lifestyle among young people" - an ambition that Obama might struggle to achieve with America's more drugs and guns-oriented style of hip-hop.

Putin warmed to the theme of Russia's 'cleaner' brand of hip-hop, telling the young Russians: "I do not think that the 'top-rock' or 'floor-rock' break dance technique is compatible with alcohol or drugs."

And it wasn't just Russian youth to whom Putin was reaching out.
Criticised in the past for his antagonistic attitude to the West, the prime minister appeared to hold out a cultural olive branch when he revealed his wish that a "global trend" like hip-hop could come from Russia. He admitted - to laughs from his adoring audience - that hip-hop was, perhaps, more entertaining than his country's traditional offering of vodka, caviar, and nesting dolls.

The Moscow Times, an English-language newspaper that is not averse to criticising the government, was nonetheless impressed by Putin's showing on Muz-TV. "Putin won lavish praise from the hip-hoppers," it reported, "even though he often looked uncomfortably detached, standing in front of a dancing crowd, clapping his hands and not moving his body."

However, not everyone agreed. The independently minded Kommersant called Putin's appearance a "desperate step".

But Putin can take comfort from one of the young winners of the Fight for Respect competition. Roma Zhigan, a rapper from St Petersburg, said in an acceptance rap that marked a departure from the more subversive Western tradition: "It would be cool to write a track with him. He is such a legendary man, he is our idol! Thanks to Muz-TV, thanks to the government of the Russian Federation."