Taras Mekhryakov was imprisoned for what. TARAS rapper: who is he? Biography, photo

Every year new luminaries light up in the horizon of Russian pop music. One of these supernovae is TARAS - a benchmark. Who he is interests everyone who loves his music.

Russian rap scene

Rap originated in the vastness of American soil as the protest music of blacks who glorified the life of criminal black ghettos. However, the musical techniques and styles that were invented by representatives of this movement turned out to be so popular that they crossed the borders of continents. Now French, German, and even Chinese performers can subscribe to the word “rap”.

The themes of the songs expanded significantly and began to concern primarily the problems that a person faces, as well as love and club themes.

It is safe to say that Russian hip-hop (or, what is the same, Russian rap) has a sufficient degree of originality to be considered an independent musical genre, on a par with the creativity of black people in the United States. Key Russian-speaking hip-hop artists - Decl, Kasta, Basta, Dolphin, Guf - occupy a prominent place in the world of Russian music.

A separate and one of the most significant trends in Russian rap is the so-called gangsta(or “street”) rap, dedicated to the problems of ordinary guys from not always prosperous families. One of those who glorify their life is rapper TARAS.

Rapper TARAS: who is this?

Hiding under the pseudonym TARAS Krasnoyarsk musician Dmitry Tarasov, who performs in the genre of street rap. He quickly won the affection of the audience and all-Russian fame with his simple texts that touch the soul and at the same time do not hide the “dirty” sides of life.

When working with fans, TARAS actively uses all the possibilities of the Internet:

His group VKontate numbers several tens of thousands of people;
In the iTunes online music store, it ranks top among representatives of the genre.

The performer’s popularity grew so quickly that in July 2016 he became a welcome guest on the “Morning Coffee” program of the local private TV channel “Afontovo”.

He is a fan of the Krasnoyarsk football club "Yenisei".

Despite the harshness and frankness of the text, Taras does not hesitate to help society: in particular, in the summer of 2016, he, together with the public motorists “Antikop”, participated in an event to help an orphanage.

Album “In Airplane Mode”

In 2016, TARAS released his debut album, which was recorded with the participation of the following colleagues:

Cuban;
Andery Toronto;
Sergey Titov (made the remix);
Its.

Some tracks from the album were recorded long before its release. For example, the songs “Alive With Her” and “Naked High” made a lot of noise in RuNet. A video was then shot for the latter. The video was also made based on the song “Patriotic”.

Having conquered his hometown, Tarasov began a tour throughout Russia in May 2016 with a new album. According to the program, performances are planned in cities not only in Siberia, but also in Central Russia.

Comparison with the Caspian Cargo group

Another group reading texts in the genre of “street rap” was founded in Azerbaijan and soon became one of the most significant in its genre. The guys started creating at the beginning of the 2000s, but real fame came to them only after the attention of the largest Russian-speaking hip-hop artist, Alexey Dolmatov, known under the stage name “Guf”, drew attention to them. The latter offered to shoot a joint video, which became a hit in the Russian music industry.

The main theme of the songs is the life of people who find themselves in a rather difficult life situation, but get out of the trap thanks to perseverance and willpower.

The group consists of two participants:

Anar Zeynalov(also known as “Ves”) - was interested in rap culture from childhood, but was not only involved in listening to other people’s tracks. He studied other people's performance styles in detail in order to develop his own style. And his efforts were not in vain - the tracks that he posted on the Internet began to gain popularity;
Timur Odilbekov(“Gross”) - somewhat younger than his partner. For the time being, his passion for music was limited to listening to compositions by popular groups.

The last member of the group, “Brutto,” is very similar in performance style to the rapper TARAS. This is noted by fans of both performers. The similarity between the two rappers is so striking that it is often very difficult to blindly determine who performs a particular track. For example, the song “Naked High” was attributed to Brutto for a long time, until Dmitry Tarasov gained a significant army of fans.

Who else goes by the pseudonym Taras?

The pseudonym Taras (in the Latin version) belongs not only to the young Krasnoyarsk hip-hop star. Under this name appears a recognized master of the genre T-killah , known in the world as Alexander Ivanovich Tarasov. His songs also belong to the rap genre, but he won the love of the audience much earlier - in 2010, after recording the song “Above the Ground.”

The very name T-killah (“ti-killah”) is an allusion to the favorite drink of nightclub regulars - tequila. At the same time, the word killah in colloquial English is a truncated version of killer, that is, “killer”. The idea to take such a pseudonym was given to Alexander by his beloved girl, whom he dated back in his school years.

Alexander actively performed on television - on Channel One and on TNT, thanks to which he became known to the mass audience.

The portfolio of Moscow rapper Taras includes a couple of albums:

Boom (“Boom”) - recorded in 2013;
“Puzzles” came out two years later.

So, now you know that two whole performers are known under the name Taras rapper. Who it is depends on the way the creative pseudonym is recorded. If you type the name in capital letters - TARAS - then we will be talking about a young Krasnoyarsk star. If the name is written in lowercase letters (Taras), then, most likely, one of the nicknames of the singer T-killah is meant.

Video clip TARAS

Yes, rap music is really connected to the street, it is the voice of those who were able to rise from the very bottom to heights that many, alas, have never even dreamed of. But all this does not mean that every standing performer was sitting. And if we take only Russian rap artists, then the number of rappers who have served time can be counted on one hand. Moreover, for the majority of convicted rappers, trials, sentences and subsequent “imprisonment” (even if it’s for three days or more than a year, it doesn’t matter) are an excellent PR move, nothing more.

But it also happens that rappers are judged for real and not at all for expressing or defending their political views, and indeed not for their creativity at all. We come to the noisy case of Roma Zhigan, famous for his rap ode in honor of Vladimir Putin (the president personally presented the performer with an award from the MuzTV channel on the TV show “Battle for Respect”) and then for his joint duet with him. Roman's case once again proves that all artists are ordinary people. The same valiant police accused him of “taking” 100 thousand rubles and a tablet from his partner. As a result of the hearings, Zhigan was sentenced to only one year in prison.

Almost all people who were in places of detention were released with a voluminous baggage of thoughts and texts, some began to write memoirs, some began to sing songs, some wrote poetry. In 2011, Taras Mekhryakov, now known as TRUEten, was released from prison. While serving his sentence (and this was already his second term), he accumulated many poems, which he could not realize for a long time. Over time, thanks to his friends, Taras turned his poems into rap tracks. His early works were first appreciated by his relatives and colleagues, then by the guys from the groups “Caspian Cargo” and “BratouBrat”. He wrote poetry before his imprisonment, but only after 2011 did he start thinking about rap. Now TRUEten continues to create, the artist works with Azimutzvuk. Looking at him, successfully developing, you wouldn’t even think that this young guy was once deprived of his freedom. Only tattoos and heavy lyrics remind of the past, reflecting the performer’s view of life, as Taras said in an interview: “I believe that a person should write about what he knows himself.”

However, some groups resort to the use of prison terms, the image of performers “in law”, in fact, without serving a single day, because many listeners are “greedy” for the “prison aura”. For example, the group “Caspian Cargo”, whose lyrics about weapons and prison mislead listeners, leading to different thoughts. But both artists never found themselves in a camera; they admitted in their interviews more than once that many stories happened not to them, but to people close to them, which is why the texts are so realistic.

Or the group “Krovostok” - heavy beats, “black” lyrics about drugs, a difficult childhood, imprisonment, but it is not known for certain whether the performers were convicted? The members of this collective represent the creative intelligentsia - Shilo is an artist and poet, Feldman is an installer and writer. Questions about activities before Krovostok are answered reluctantly, most often under the guise that it is “top secret.” Be that as it may, one of the most popular topics that fans talk about with their search engines and Internet browsers is that “Krovostok” was in prison.”

While studying the topic of “jailed” rappers, we thought: what difference does it make to anyone, what kind of relationship someone has with the law? All over the world, many people from completely different professions find themselves behind bars. And, to be completely honest, many of us who are reading this article now have had problems with the police/police. But is it worth judging a person on this basis? In rap, the main thing, in our opinion, is the ability to express one’s thoughts. A person can be crystal clear before the law, but he won’t rhyme anything other than “love is carrots, the blood has cooled.” Is not it?

TRUEshadow

In Russian hip-hop culture, the movement of Russian-language gangsta rap began to manifest itself. At the beginning, we observed a branch into “underground” rap, but now the underground has begun to show a separate movement of our Russian criminal rap, rap of a criminal nature, and these are not empty words, guys appear who are really experienced and in their lyrics you can really hear the atmosphere of decency of the criminal world.

RAPPER TRUESHADOW... The real name of the Artist is Taras Mekhryakov. Born in the capital of the Altai Territory, Barnaul, on March 13, 1983. Taras, better known to listeners of Russian rap as TRUEten, began rapping in 2011, after being released from prison. As the Artist himself says, in one of his interviews, after his release he accumulated a lot of poems written in prison.

At first after his release, Taras did not know how to realize his rich creative potential, and thanks to his friends, he decided to record several tracks. His tracks, according to their semantic load, are intended for people who have anything to do with criminal activity and the purity of human motives, for people with a crystal heart and abstract thinking.
Taras’s first works were well appreciated by friends, colleagues and many publics in contact, after which he presented his work personally to colleagues in the shop, such as Caspian Cargo and BratuBrat, etc. The guys liked what Taras was doing and subsequently with each of them he had collaborations. Further - more... The rapper works with such performers as: SLIM, BRATUBRAT, Cat Balu, Vnuk, Caspian Gruz, Vetl Udalykh, Raskolnikov, Osobov, Alexey Sulima, Slovetsky, Pra(Killa`Gramm), Gio Pika, Amir( Legends Pro), Isupov and many other famous Rappers.
As TRUEshadow told him, he had never been particularly attracted to hip-hop before; he preferred Rock, even after Rap became his main type of creative activity. TRUEshadow is “prolific” and talented - he has already recorded 4 Albums (One Chain, Tramps, Lobvlob and Solution), the last of which, recently released, is sensational - “Solution”. Taras does not stand still, in “work” There is a lot of new material..... I would especially like to note the lyrics, sometimes hooligan, written by Taras, they are very popular and loved among fans (and fans) of his work.

TRUEten is an Artist of the label "AzimutZvuk", under the leadership of Rapper SLIM.