When I was a kid, I grew up with a lot of music from Russian CDs. With those CDs, it has introduced me to Russian hip-hop: which is my favorite type of hip-hop. In general, I always liked hip-hop from outside of North America; especially from Russia, Japan, South Africa, and the UK.

My favorite Russian hip-hop group would have to be Band’Eros (Банд'Эрос). This group was basically the Russian equivalent of the American hip-hop group The Black Eyed Peas: basically being a group that was experimental with many different types of sounds from r&b to techno, displaying the urban cities of America (such as in their music video for “Do not promise (Не зарекайся)”), and sometimes spreading awareness to messages based on the state of the world.

This is especially expressed in Band’Eros’s 2006 album “Columbia Pictures no represent (Коламбия Пикчерз не представляет)”. Later being re-released in 2008 with a new edition featuring a new song with a remix known as ”What a beautiful life (Про красивую жизнь)”. The song that shares the name of the album is about how Columbia PIctures represents the rich qualities of life in Hollywood but not the real world where people struggle in life. The official music video perfectly represents the lyrics in a parody style by comparing superheroes to soldiers dying in war.

I will forever be nostalgic for this album and appreciate every aspect of this album: from the album cover to the messages and to the sound of the album itself. I hope that more people from outside of Russia will find this group’s music and enjoy it as much as I do. I give this album a rating of 8/10.