Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been nominated for an unlikely award — in music.
Music television channel Muz TV has nominated Putin for an Event of the Year award for his November appearance on a hip-hop show where he gushed about the music's important "social message" and praised graffiti as "elegant."
The Event of the Year award is among nine categories that will be presented at Muz TV's Russian Street Awards ceremony on April 21 in Moscow.
It was unclear Wednesday whether Putin would attend the event, which will be broadcast live on Muz TV, controlled by billionaire Alisher Usmanov.
But either way, Putin's nomination is a "revolutionary event" for Russian music, said Alexander Kondukov, editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Rolling Stone magazine.
“Any ceremony featuring Putin will help add to its feeling of grandiosity, even if he himself is absent,” Kondukov said.
The nomination is for Putin's appearance on Muz TV's "Battle for Respect" show, where he handed out prizes to hip-hoppers, break dancers and graffiti artists. Putin, dressed in a white turtleneck sweater and gray zippered jacket, praised the music, saying, “Although rap is kind of rough, it has a social message dealing with the problems of the young.” As for graffiti, he said it has been recognized as real art, “fine and elegant.”
Other events nominated together with Putin for the Event of the Year award are the breakup of well-known Russian hip-hop act Tsentr and the Splash 2009 hip-hop festival.
Among other Russian Street Awards nominees is rapper Ivan Alexeyev, aka Noize MC, who is known for writing critical and hard-hitting songs about everyday life.
Alexeyev makes a reference to Putin in his song, "Everything Goes as Planned," which is critical of life in Russia. "Are you still living in [expletive]? Everything will be OK soon, you can be sure. … Vova Putin will smile at you from the TV," the song goes.
Alexeyev also wrote a song saying that LUKoil vice president Anatoly Barkov — who was involved in a car crash in February that killed two women and provoked a public outcry after police refused to investigate — will burn in hell.
The singer’s spokesman, Grigory Zorin, said Alexeyev “has no objection” to sharing the floor with Putin.
If Putin wins the award, he will follow the path of the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who received a U.S. Grammy musical award in February 2004 for his part in the telling of the classical tale "Peter and the Wolf" with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren.
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