The Leybl as Tusovka

Approaching Hip-hop Musical Collectives in Bishkek

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5429/2079-3871(2024)v14i2.9en

Keywords:

Musical collective, hip-hop, Central Asia, Creative labour

Abstract

As in other peripheral music economies, hip-hop music-makers in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, self-organise their artistic labour in a context of “lack” of institutions and public support. This article takes a closer look at Bishkek’s hip-hop leybly, musical collectives that emerged around 2010. In order to highlight the particularities of these social formations and analyse their inner workings, I use the concept of tusovka – a slang term widely used in everyday Russian-speaking cultural communities. Building on previous conceptualisations of this term as a form of meeting-based, organic sociality, and drawing on two examples of hip-hop leybly in Bishkek I argue that the tusovka can make a theoretical contribution to the wider field of popular music studies in an attempt at “ex-centric” theory building.

Author Biography

Florian Coppenrath, IASPM D-A-CH

PhD Student in Central Asian Studies at Humboldt-University in Berlin and affiliated researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (Berlin). Ongoing dissertation project about the economy of hip-hop music production in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

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Published

06-11-2024