Battle Rap

KRISTINA BARDASH, a fashion-forward indie-pop singer from Kyiv who performs under the name LUNA, makes "hot sad girl music." IVAN DORN, who grew up in the north, near the Belarus border, is a pop star with a gender-fluid fashion sense who's gravitated in recent years to funk and soul influences. ALYONA ALYONA (who I've written about here) is an EMINEM-obsessed rapper from the middle of the country who celebrates her plus-side body and "can really spit—like, she's legit." These are some of the surface facts we learn from a wonderful New York Times Popcast hosted by JON CARAMANICA and featuring Vogue fashion writer and Eastern European culture expert LIANA SATENSTEIN; they chat about Ukrainian pop stars who've used their music in various ways to celebrate a country in the middle of a coming-of-age moment while pushing the boundaries of how that country's culture can look and sound.

They've all also, in the past three weeks, had things to say about Russia's cruel, horrific invasion of their homeland. But none have spoken out as much as dance-pop star MAX BARSKIH. He's the first major Ukrainian star to release a song and video about the invasion, and he's taken to Instagram repeatedly to speak, in Russian, about what it's like, for the benefit of fans in Russia who may not be getting the news. (Unfortunately, they may not be getting the news from him either anymore, as Instagram went offline in Russia at the beginning of this week.) "He has really just said, 'This is what is happening,'" Satenstein says. "And he speaks to them in Russian and just gives it a full breakdown." Before Instagram went down, Russia talked back, in the person of Russian rapper TIMATI, a VLADIMIR PUTIN apologist who told Barskih, via social media, to watch himself. Satenstein relates how another Ukrainian, POTAP, of the duo POTAP & NASTYA, stepped in on Barskih's behalf and turned the incident into a full-on proxy war. There's absolutely no front on which Ukrainians aren't ready to fight, and the verdict, at least from our admittedly biased judges, is the Ukrainians won handily. In Potap's video aimed at Timati, "he was like, 'You should talk to your mother; she's very smart,'" Satenstein says. "Like, ouch."

Satenstein and Caramanica also chat about the time and place that has spawned this culture and about the importance of language, especially in the years since the 2014 Maidan Revolution. They're good guides to the culture behind the news. Culture contains our souls, and that's why I've felt compelled to share music and stories of a country under siege over the past three weeks, and why I'll keep doing it. They are, on the one hand, just pop songs. On the other hand, they're a measure of a people.

Rest in Peace

Revered Broadway vocal coach BARBARA MAIER GUSTERN, who died five days after being violently attacked outside her New York apartment. Her students beyond Broadway included Debbie Harry and Diamanda Galas... Tibetan pop singer TSEWANG NORBU, who self-immolated on Feb. 25 to protest Chinese rule.