Announced on November 21st, Husky [Dmitry Kuznetsov, whom I strongly proclaim justly deserves the title of ‘Pushkin of Rap’, despite the Rapper Nas claiming his stake of the title. I strongly reject his absurd claim to the title as respectable or even deserving] released the link to his newly-created website entitled ‘papinomoloko.com’, created only six weeks [and two days] before the revised beginning of his second tour, this time spanning over 30 locations and two months, ‘ХАСКИ 2021’. Accompanying the website’s launch, whose layout features a stark-white aesthetic and no opening screen or traditional ‘home’ page, was a created Instagram titled @papinomolokocom, whose profile photo, as of November 25th, remains a black circle, a possible allusion to Husky’s lyrical enigmatism, but most likely connects to Husky’s strong acclimation towards personalized de-preferentialism and even, what Kross, Ayduk, & Mischel(2005) have called ‘Self-Distancing’, a strong commitment to separating the ‘self’ from life ‘itself’ [or better yet, various forms of ‘trauma’ be they socio-cultural observations, personal afflictions, mental conflicts, or experiential deprivations of various kinds]. The year 2020, in its extraordinary totality, has proven to be the zenith of his nine-year Artistic career [which extends from music to producing, to even acting], a fact integral to memorize due to the sheer amount of content he has managed to create, produce, and star-in, as well as the adjoining amount of socio-cultural [and political] backlash, support, and angst he has caused in traditionally-oriented Russia, in particular Putin’s cultural-stinted backside [2018 specifically and his car-topping bravery]. Husky’s first ‘tour post’ [via his Tour-gram] depicted him engaged in gesticular esotericisms via hand-motions while seated in an unassumingly modernized kitchen, which visually radiates contemporary Dacha romanticism, due to its furnishings of stainless-steel appliances, a fully-electronic oven, and obligatory Russian-styled, painted earthenware [глиняная посуда].
With nothing more than a concentrated furl of the brow [which oscillated between a disobeyingly communicative poker-face] and a correlated eye-gaze that seemed to challenge dimensional borders, he began his attempt at a supraphysical energy manifestation. It is here where the influence of Husky’s January trip to Vrndavana [located in the Braj Bhoomi region, and was the place where Sri Radha Krishna spent quite a lot of his youth] starts to become apparent, and additional, albeit inferred, simple awareness on one end and adroit comprehension on the other, with psycho-spiritualistic discourse and cultural practices pertaining to ‘life force energy’ organization [Reiki], energy-purification and authentic awakening [Kundalini Yoga], and very much not least the ancient Indian teachings of the ‘six psychic centers’, otherwise known as the six Chakras of the human body [Vedic Spiritualism]. In the 30-second clip, Husky maneuvers his hands through a dual-actioned, Qi-pulling [La-Qi] inspired sequence of movements, where one hand conjurers the dormant Qi, while the other harnesses and acts as the physical intermediary, this process exchanging between hands and becomes physically more involved as the video progresses. Against this backdrop of Husky’s Psionic undertaking at Energyball manifestation, considered by one Writer as one type of Thought-Form, “...those things that you think about with enough emotion and belief that they become real…” the video cuts away to the three items featured on the website for purchase [merch in modern slang], i.e., 1) a cream-grey crew-neck T-Shirt with a depiction of Husky in a contrasting green color with his Instagram name below, 2) a pyrographically-edged cutting board to resemble a Ouija board, complete with a heart-shaped wooden Planchette, and 3) a porcelain white-plate with a small, decaled fly on its face [a reference to Хошхоног’s sixth track ‘World of Flies’].
Despite Husky being exceptionally imaginative in all things, this promo-clip did not cut it for me on a couple fronts, the sole reason being his constant use of cutaways to quite literally ‘sell’ his merch, which could have been more properly ‘sold’ by capitalizing on product ambiguity and the sheer act of information-deprivation via unarticulated details. I would have thought he would have played more into the visual fantasticality of his attempt at potency-generation and his unbroken connection with the viewer, rather than catering to the viewer [potential purchaser in this case] through a spoon-fed method of ‘here it is, don’t work to find out’. As they cut to the cutting board [15 sec. mark], one could see Husky’s body still moving, which then strengthens the notion that this was a continuous shot, so the question consequently arises being why did they feel the need to zoom when this video could have been an opportunity to have an intimate 30-seconds with Husky and only Husky via eye-contact alone? This latter option [unfortunately neglected] seems much more Huskian in conception, rather than simply nourishing the viewer’s observational curiousness of a stand-alone plate and etched-cutting board awkwardly fit into the background, what is experienced is far greater than what could ever be created within the bounds of the temporal-spatial limits of a phone, the Earth, the Universe itself, better yet all-things created from the [technically unproven, but wholly believable] cataclysmic Big Bang nearly 13.7 billion years ago. Another area of concern was the heavily truncated length, and in hopes of avoiding claims of petulance, I make this critique bolstered by the sheer fact that Husky created six Music-Videos, participated in two Artist-contributions, produced a mini-Album, one Single, and collaboratively produced one song all in the year of 2019, and you are telling me this was the best marketing video he could have come up with?
What it seems like is that Husky first initiated the idea of 1st-Chakra, Pranic rejuvenation [Root Chakra-Muladhara in Sanskrit], albeit in different terminology, i.e., his Instagram description, “Good evening, today I will charge your phones with positive energy,” but somewhere, perhaps, allowed himself to be guided inadvertently towards focusing on the merchandise and not the message, or in the Hindu tradition, a focus on the Charvaka School of Materialism, rather than the anti-Materialistic sentiments of a plurality of Hindu Schools including The Advaita Vedanta division led by Adi Shankaracharya, founder of a bifurcated view of Maya [Illusionment], and the eclectic tradition of The Vedanta School and its realization of Maya, “And because of Maya the right (true) appears as lie, what is lie as right(true), just as a cord falsely appears to be a snake, and what really (truly) is a snake appears as a cord.” Following his initial post, Husky [or those in-charge of Media marketing] posted two more promotional uploads, the second being another short video, this time depicting Husky posting a tear-away, 2021 Calendar on a much-overused ‘board’ in an outside locality, conceivably in a side-street due to a fortified door being sported on the left and a clean, black door to the right, outfitted with all sorts of safety measure [code pad, camera, warning poster]. The video itself engenders redolent memories of commonly seen babysitting posters with tear-away phone-number tabs, albeit posted under different pretenses. The third post is only merchandise photos professionally shot, and because of the previous two video postings, it feels wholly out of thematic synchronicity, engendering feelings of corporate isolationism, rather than excited vigour for the public display of Husky 2.0.
All things considered, I am beyond glad to see Husky going on-tour again, especially after 2018’s nightmare, and I have no doubt that he knows exactly what he’s doing, so all there’s really to do is to let yourself experience, “Sit comfortably, put your hands palms up, listen to your inner sensations. So please:”
Husky personal Instagram can be viewed here, his Tour Instagram can be viewed here, and the associated website can be viewed here.
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