I feel like so often I’m more disappointed than happy to find out more about artists I like. Personally, Peggy working with Kanye, Yung Lean recently hanging out with Kanye - that stuff was shitty to see
Who are some artists who are based that you appreciate?
I’m gonna say Soul Flower Mononoke Summit / Soul Flower Union. They’ve literally performed in the DPRK and at Palestinian refugee camps, so if they are anything but supremely based it would surprise me a lot. Otherwise I guess I can mention some DPRK classics like the Moranbong Band, Wangjaesan Light Music Band, and Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble… On the other hand classic bands and musicians from former socialist states I’m a lot more cautious with assuming to be non-problematic. After all, Alla Pugacheva is apparently a Zionist living in a luxury villa in Caesarea now. Yech.
Speaking of disappointment...
The irony of this post is that I was originally gonna mention the band Vømmøl Spellmannslag as my off-the-top-of-my-head pick for “based musicians who I appreciate”. After all, their lyrics are explicitly Marxist-Leninist, right? But then I looked it up and uhhhh… The lead vocalist and songwriter for Vømmøl Spellmannslag apparently in the 2010s made and said a bunch of vitriolically racist/xenophobic/islamophobic shit. Just absolutely babybrained shit that you can hardly believe could’ve been penned by the same hand that in the '70s and '80s was writing praises of Lenin and Mao and saying that Stalin’s USSR was responsible for defeating the Nazis. His name is Hans Rotmo; apparently the only party he was ever registered with was the Center Youth, so he wasn’t even an organized communist; and eight days ago he came forth with that he’s undergoing treatment for severe cancer, delaying Vømmøl Spellmannslag’s fiftieth anniversary tour. Fucking womp womp.
The AKP(m-l) already had some babybrained revisionist takes on imperialism, so I guess I should’ve expected that Norwegian communists in the 1970s would by the 2010s become racist old yarrows. Ugh. Lenin was right when he spoke of “dense, phillistine opportunism” in the European socialist movement.