You may not be much of a fan of copycat rock anthems by non-Western bands.
Likewise you might not be much of a fan of modern Russian culture.
Nevertheless, if you’re willing to invest 3 minutes and 39 seconds of your time then I think you are going to see why Western cultural homogeneity is quite possibly going to lose the ongoing global culture war.
Here goes…
Styling himself somewhere between Phil Oakey and Billy Idol, Russian uber ethno-goth Yaroslav Yuryevich Dronov, better known as Shaman, pounds out three and a half minutes of utterly unapologetic Russian nationalism with such a fervour I bet it will overwhelm all but the most emotionally-detached Western moralist.
Aside of the sheer sense of energy, what I find intriguing about the song are the lyrics. You don’t get lyrics like this in the West. For example…
Я русский, я иду до конца
Я русский, моя кровь от отца, хе-хей
Я русский, и мне повезло
Я русский, всему миру назло
In English…
I’m Russian, I’ll walk the road to the end
I'm Russian, with the bloodline from my father
I'm Russian, and I'm lucky
I'm Russian, in spite of this whole world
Released some months into the Ukraine war, Ya Russkiy is to me both compelling and scary. I see how the intensity of Shaman’s ethno-nationalistic passion could easily twist into a Third Reich style horror-show. And yet I find something utterly entrancing in the way he completely doesn’t back down in the face of universal Western condemnation, but rather uses the sense of oppression to fuel his, and his audience's, demand for recognition.
I find Shaman pulling me into one of the central dichotomies of human culture - the need for passion and the desire for safety. I hope you found value in watching the video too.