In July 2006, the book “Sinners” by the famous St. Petersburg writer Ilya Stogov was published. One of his first works, “Macho Men Don’t Cry,” is practically a programmatic piece for those born in the 70s. Reviewers most often compared Stogov with Kerouac, Burroughs and Dovlatov. Now the writer is preparing a book about domestic hip-hop, which we will definitely tell you about soon.
“Sinners” is a confession of 15 cult figures of the St. Petersburg underground, including Mister Maloy. A cult figure of the 90s, for many he became the first association with the word “rap”. Having become incredibly popular throughout the country at the age of 13, he went through a lot, which he talks about on the pages of this book...
Mister Maloy (b. 1979) - rap star
Once in the “Tunnel” I met a girl. We left the club, dropped into the nearest front door, I sat her on the windowsill, pulled my penis out of her panties, spread her legs... The girl closed her eyes: “Wow!”... Along the way, she became emotional, screamed loudly, threw her head back, - and knocked the frame out of the window with the back of her head. The noise was terrible. I even sat down in fright. Adjusting our clothes as we went, we ran out of the front door. However, no one reacted to the roar. We smoked and the girl asked me to finish what I started. But this time we went to a different front door.
The “tunnel” opened in May 1993. I started going there constantly. I visited the first techno clubs “Tunnel” and “Planetarium”, went to squats on the Fontanka and Obvodny Canal. Grown-up guys hung out there: fashionistas, partygoers, bandits, DJs, artists, some stunning women... And I was barely 14 years old.
I don't know why they were all messing with me. This has been the case all my life, since childhood: adults immediately accepted me into their company, treated me as equals, laughed at my jokes, were not jealous of their women and treated me to the most expensive drugs in the world...
I was born on Prosveshcheniya Avenue. During the time of Alexander Blok and Igor Severyanin, it was a prestigious holiday village. By the end of the twentieth century, Prosvet turned into the St. Petersburg Bronx.
The main rap groups in the country live within a two-stop radius around my house. And DJ Tengiz opened the very first rap studio in the country at Prosvet. The studio is located in the house where Anatoly Sobchak, the first mayor of St. Petersburg, lived twenty years ago.
Here his daughter, Ksenia Sobchak, was born and the neighbors still remember how in the evenings the mayor would go out into the yard to use a plastic stick to knock out the rug hanging on the rickety football goal.
As soon as he became mayor, Sobchak moved to the center. And I still live in the house in which I was born. My entire biography took place in front of my neighbors. When I meet, I always say hello to them.
My current girlfriend is surprised:
- Do you really know all these people?
I don’t know how it is in her area, but in Prosvet it’s normal. When meeting, people said hello, went to visit each other, and in the evenings they all watched black and white TV together.
My mother raised my brother and me alone. Dad was a submariner. He went on a combat raid for six months, then returned and rested as hard as he could until he set sail again. And my mother ran around, took care of the children, stood in lines, received some kind of food stamps...
My brother is five years older than me. He grew up calmer. One day on the radio he heard an announcement about recruitment to a school. modern dance. He got excited and said that he would definitely sign up, and I went with him for company. One of the subjects at school was called “rap dance”. It was wildly fashionable back then. I just turned 12 years old.
The dance teacher turned out to be a funny man. He had dyed red hair and a bowl-cut hairstyle. In principle, he taught completely different dances, not the ones that interested us. But it was at his school that I met a guy who took me to a breakdancers’ party for the first time. Then I learned dancing there.
I went to dances at the Courier disco club, the Lensovet Palace of Culture and the Youth Palace. I grabbed it easily. He could immediately repeat any movement.
Soon I became almost the main star in this party. Dancing in the hall seemed cramped to me and I constantly climbed onto the stage.
At the Lensoviet Palace of Culture, dances were held every weekend. I didn't miss a single evening. I had nothing to pay for entry. I agreed with the owners of the disco that I would dance on stage, and for this they would let me in for free. There were no professional dancers in any club in those years. Soon I met the DJ who worked at these dances. It turned out that we were neighbors: the guy lived two houses away from me. His name was Andrey Repnikov. I started going only to those dances where Andrei DJed, I spent hours at his house, he introduced me to the whole hip-hop crowd and now I only talked with those people with whom Andrei talked.
This is still not clear to me. I was almost a child, and these guys - they were completely adults. Andrey was already over twenty. His friends were making the most modern music in the country, and I just knew how to dance beautifully. What interest did they have in communicating with the little boy?
You know, sometimes on the street or in a cafe you can meet families, looking at whom you immediately understand: everything is fine with them. The child loves his parents, and the parents love each other and always smile when they look at the child. It wasn't like that in my family. That is, in childhood I had this feeling... but I probably missed it. Dad was at sea, Mom had to survive. Sometimes it began to seem to me as if right now, at this moment, no one loved me at all... no one, no one thought about me... and the world was collapsing, and it would have been easier, probably, to die. I ran out of the house into the street and looked for people around whom I didn’t have to think about it.
Andrey's dad is quite famous classical composer. But he lived separately, in another city, and Andrei’s apartment was always free. I went to him in the morning, woke him up, and we spent together around the clock. I was always there.
One day we visited DJ Michael Pugo. The day before, Michael bought a pack of fashionable long “Three Bogatyrs” cigarettes at the Beryozka currency store. He boasted for a long time about how long and cool these cigarettes were, twirled the pack in his hands, and then said that it was probably time to quit.
I had seen my brother's friends smoking many times before. But they never treated me. Here no one paid attention to my age. The marijuana itself was not important to me, what was important was what happened next. We smoked, drank beer or tea - and talked endlessly. We talked to each other. We were together.
I was finally happy.
By the way, I also had sex with the very first person in my class. When I got on stage at the Lensovet Palace of Culture and started dancing, all the girls in the hall looked at it with amazed eyes. One day, squeezing closer, one of them said that she didn’t have her parents at home today, and if I wanted, we could play game console Dendy.
I told the guys in the class that I had girls - wow! That I have them - that’s the only way! But in fact, that time was my first. The girl was four years older than me: she was already seventeen. I stayed with her all night, and in the morning I went to share the news with my classmates. I knew for sure: none of them had ever had anything like this before. Among my peers, I was the coolest.
Then there were a lot of girls. The first more or less permanent girlfriend I had was a school acquaintance from a parallel class. Her name was Tanya. She was very beautiful. The first time we slept with her was simply a bet: can we do it or not? It seemed that Tanya began to be considered MY girlfriend, but I was not going to take all this seriously.
Somehow big company we went to sunbathe, and then Tanya’s closest friend and I ended up at my house. I immediately reached into the girl’s panties. My grandmother was sleeping in the next room, and my friend was clearly intact, but neither one nor the other bothered me. I pulled off her panties, forced her to lie down, and pressed her with my whole body onto the sofa...
She pushed me away with weak hands and whispered:
- And Tanya? What about Tanya? What will you and I tell Tanya?
I pushed her clenched legs apart with my knees and explained:
- Tanya is my girlfriend. And you and I will just have fun.
The girl sobbed loudly. This just made me laugh. What exactly other people would think and feel did not interest me at all then.
What kind of study is there? Now I only went to school to drink beer with my classmates. At one time I even left home and moved in with Andrey. At that time, Andrei already had some kind of bride in mind, and the apartment was very small, but they were not shy at all and could easily chat with me about sex or treat me with something.
Besides me, British DJ Luke Mills lived at Andrey’s house. Sometimes DJ Groove stopped by, who was then writing the very first sets and had not yet turned into “The Great DJ-Groove.” Some new people appeared constantly.
Not far from our block is Sosnovsky Park. Andrey and I went there to sunbathe. Once on the beach he met friends - DJs from Tengiz and Khot. At that time, these two were doing the “Thermonuclear Jam” project.
That year, the very first Russian rap cassette went on sale. On the one hand, the group “Bachelor Party” was recorded, in which Dolphin read, and on the other, “Thermonuclear Jam” was recorded.
Tengiz and Khot were celestial beings for me. I knew all their lyrics by heart.
It was hot. We swam and lay on the sand, but I couldn’t just rest. I wanted to do something right now. I already tried to read some texts several times, but mostly at that time I was still a dancer.
I started asking the guys:
- Take me to dance with you! You will read, and I will dance on stage!
I stood up and showed a couple of moves. That summer, the American hip-hop project CrisCross was fashionable. These are two such cheerful little black kids who wore jeans turned backwards and sang the song Jump! Jump!
Tengiz and Khot looked at me carefully. I was small and cheerful.
Maybe try making a Russian CrisCross? - they thought, - What is your name?
- Barmaley.
- Barmaley? Somehow not very... Do you have any other nickname?
- Sometimes they call me “Little One”.
- It’s already better! Now you will be "Mr. Small"!
You know, as a child I had two big dreams. I wanted to be shown on TV and I also really liked the singer Natalya Vetlitskaya.
This woman has always had a fantastic effect on me. Just her photographs gave me goosebumps.
In 1994, we took the “Mr. Maloy” project to Moscow. We took part in the Generation 94 festival. The event was organized on a Moscow scale: a fashionable party, a lot of people, dozens of groups. They identified the best: who will become the leader of this very generation-94? We turned out to be the best.
In the early 1990s, there was no one else on this field except us. There was no other such project. Without investing a single cent in promotion, we simply did our job honestly and the whole country learned about us. Today this is no longer possible.
The festival organizers said that we would get first place and the main prize - we just need to sign a contract with them. But at that time we already had a contract. They tried to persuade us for some time, and then they waved their hand. Instead of first, we were given second place. It didn't matter, because the prize from the press and money from sponsors still went to us.
The prize was presented to me by Natalya Vetlitskaya. I stood on the stage of the heaviest and most official hall in the country and this was broadcast to an audience of two hundred million. I held Vetlitskaya by the waist, and she laughed and leaned over to kiss me. This photograph was then printed on the front pages of all newspapers: the most beautiful woman countries and near me.
Both dreams came true before I graduated from high school. I had to sit down and think about what to dream about next. But I simply didn’t have time to think calmly.
Very soon I began to spend most of my time on tour. The school principal couldn't wrap his head around this. She was sure that this was a lie and that I was simply skipping school. I was called to her office for a conversation, but the day before I called the producer and as a result, instead of me, a man in a jacket and with a briefcase appeared in the director’s office, who brought her a paper from Moscow with a bunch of official seals: “Dear Madam Director! Please release the boy in connection with upcoming tours in the following cities of the country...” Next is a half-page list of cities.
I would love to send all these women wearing stupid glasses. To the question “Where homework?”, I would answer them: “Go to hell, you inarticulate mare! Can you imagine what level of people came to my concert yesterday?!” But none of this happened. I just batted my eyelashes and promised that this wouldn’t happen again.
Constant conversations: with teachers, with class teacher, with the head teacher, with the square school principal... In terms of height in the class, I stood second from the bottom. The look is pitiful, skinny child's face... You make innocent eyes, promise everything they want, and until tomorrow you can live in peace.
I was afraid of teachers. It was something irrational. I knew that they wouldn’t be able to organize really serious troubles for me... they certainly wouldn’t be able to... and I was still afraid. Fear arose immediately as soon as they came closer and started looking at me.
I think these are traces of the USSR. I went to school exactly the year when Perestroika began. And when the USSR collapsed, I was not yet 12. But I still say “Soviet”, meaning “our”, “Russian”.
Anyone who has caught even a glimpse of the USSR will never be able to completely get rid of it. There is simply no cure for this.
Like cancer. Like a heroin addiction.
In the spring of that year, I walked from school with my briefcase, and my songs sounded from half the windows. After Generation 94, everything began to change very quickly. Officially, I continued to be listed as a student high school. But I barely made it to my ninth grade graduation. It was clear that they simply would not allow me to move to number ten. The school director directly said that she could no longer see me. Only for the sake of me disappearing, at the final exams the teachers gave me a C grade. School program I didn't know at all.
I studied at this school for eight years. I didn't see anything good from her. But school was at least some kind of stability. I was scared to completely break with my childhood. School - work - pension... My parents lived their lives this way and I was afraid to leave the well-trodden path.
After summer holidays I came to the director and began to ask to be allowed to continue studying. I said that I had matured, understood everything and now I would become different. The director was shocked. She didn’t believe a single word I said, but legally she couldn’t refuse. And I moved from ninth to tenth grade.
Of course, nothing came of this idea. The entire first quarter was spent on tour for me. From September to November I showed up to school twice at most. I never received a single grade. I had to leave school.
On graduation party The whole class drank vodka. How much did we children need? As soon as she had drunk, one of the girls started yelling that we were all pimply virgins, and she, by the way, was the first in the class to lose her virginity! She knows the taste of a man’s penis firsthand!.. This interested me.
I dragged the girl into the bathroom, turned her back to me, bent her over, unbuttoned her own jeans... It seems that she was a virgin after all. There was a lot of blood. Blood dripped down her legs onto the floor. The girl whispered that enough was enough... she felt unpleasant... she squirmed and tried to pick my dick out of herself with her fingers... I just wasn't paying attention. All the guys who were in the apartment crowded into the next room, climbed onto the toilet with their feet and took turns peeking through the ventilation holes to see what was happening.
Suddenly a lot of money appeared. We distributed the fees like this: the producer immediately took half of the amount, and the other half was divided between three people by me, Tengiz and Hot. That is, it reached me about fifteen percent, but it was quite decent money.
I was just a child. Everything he earned was spent on parties and drugs. To get rich, to acquire real estate, or a bank account - at that time I did not manage to do any of this. Yes, I didn’t strive for this. Life was already an endless pleasure.
To celebrate my coming of age, I rented a large Moscow club. There were about a hundred people invited, plus a bunch of simply beautiful girls. A good DJ played. I bought fruit, alcohol and some drugs. The guests brought the rest with them in huge quantities. I paid some money to the cops and they spent the whole evening making sure no one disturbed us.
The time was such that people climbed to the very top instantly. Yesterday you were a nobody, and today you are sitting in the most expensive club in Eastern Europe and police officers are making sure that no brute prevents you from snorting cocaine. True, you could have fallen back just as quickly. Going to prison was as realistic as becoming a millionaire.
Once at the Planetarium club, the cops grabbed me right at the entrance. Usually they didn’t search there and I relaxed: instead of putting it in my sock, I left the bag in my jeans pocket. The cop reached into my pocket, pulled out the puck and literally lit up with happiness:
- ABOUT! Hashish!
I was tempted to spit in his face:
- You were born a sucker, you die a sucker! What hashish? Don't you understand at all? This is “Chinese dust”!
That time everything worked out: friends sorted it out. I sat at the police picket until the morning, and then the senior officer named the price and they took me further away to the police station, and they released me.
Cocaine then cost $200 per gram. And heroin that just appeared in Moscow from somewhere in Africa - $300. No one really knew what this heroin was. Today, any schoolchild knows that there are drugs and there is heroin, and heroin is certain death. Then, the only thing I saw: heroin is one and a half times more expensive than coke. Which means it’s better, cooler and probably less harmful.
The people I hung out with back then were very serious. It is believed that bandos should only listen to chanson, but this is not true. In America, self-respecting criminals listen to rap, and the Leningrad bandits of the first generation were not at all stupid bulls. These people came from black marketeers, were used to communicating with foreigners and spoke the same slang in which I sang. You just can’t imagine what my song “I’ll Die Young!” meant to them.
It was these people who gave me heroin the first time. We did not inject it into a vein, but sniffed it beautifully from the tip of a knife. That time I vomited all over the apartment for the owners, but I really liked the drug itself. What I tried before was pretty harmless. There are no withdrawal symptoms, and it is impossible to die from an overdose. There are unpleasant psychological effects, but you can get through it... It seemed to me that the scary talk about heroin was also an exaggeration.
The producer called me: the next performance is there and there. I lectured “I will die young!”, received money and had nothing else to do. The days seemed endlessly long. The second time they treated me too, and the third time I went to the dealer with the money. The dealer was Azerbaijani. I knew his roof. For a while he sold it to me at a deep discount. The further I went, the more often I dropped by to see him, and then suddenly I discovered that I was hooked.
It scared me, but not very much. I decided that I would just change the situation. I’ll go to Moscow: another city, everything all over again, no familiar dealers. I’ll work hard and forget about heroin. The first two days I was broken. But on the third day I felt like I was born again. I thought that now I could only get by with alcohol and marijuana.
All the talk about addiction is not about me.
As expected strong guys I managed to keep the situation under control. Therefore, I decided that it would be nice to find a place in Moscow where I could drop by to buy heroin if I suddenly needed it urgently... and in general - so be it. Of course, I immediately found a huge variety of sellers. Then everything happened quickly. With heroin, everything happens very quickly.
I firmly decided that I would use it extremely rarely and only a little at a time. And if so, then it would be nice to get maximum pleasure from this business. Everyone said that sniffing was a pointless waste. Heroin needs to be injected directly into a vein - then you will feel a real buzz. And I switched to intravenous injections. And after some time - already a complete heroin addict - I returned back to St. Petersburg.
Still, it hasn't been a problem yet. I had friends, a job, and the most best women in the world. Everything I wanted became mine. The life I led suited me completely.
Together with Tengiz and Khot, we sat down in the studio to write new album. Things were hardly moving: my huckster lived exactly opposite the studio. In the mornings, I first went to see him and only then went to pee. The guys tried to explain that this was impossible. It was impossible to explain anything to me.
I have set up a daily life cycle. I need to make myself some heroin in the morning. Just to live. During the day I smoked a certain amount of marijuana, and in the evening I arrived at the club. There I drank alcohol and ate pills or amphetamines. If he found someone with cocaine, he could snort the cocaine. Then there’s alcohol and marijuana. I danced, smoked, drank and took pills again. In the morning, in order to fall asleep, I had to take heroin. This went on for five years in a row. I tried not to think about what would happen next.
Heroin is a huge burden on the body. Any addict knows: if you don’t want to quit quickly, you need to take a break from heroin from time to time. You use for several months in a row, then you break, you don’t use for a while, you give your body a rest and only after that you can start all over again.
It wasn't like that for me. I was very afraid of physical pain. I could withstand the withdrawal symptoms for a maximum of a day, and on the morning of the second day I was already knocking on the door of the dealer. Instead of stopping and taking a break, I used heroin every day for five years. The body cannot be repaired from such a load. I haven’t had a single tooth left in my mouth for a long time, and there isn’t a single organ in my body that doesn’t bother me today.
The guys from the group tried to talk to me:
- It’s good to come to the studio whipped! Let's sign up, and then go wherever you want!
- Yes! - I said. - Certainly! WITH tomorrow That's what we'll do!
In the morning I came to the crossroads, looked at the studio, then at the house where the huckster lives, then again at the studio - and still I went to the huckster first. The guys are tired of it. They even tried to put me right in the studio so that I could break things there. You will plunge into work and forget about everything, they said. But these methods will not solve the problem. When heroin enters your life, it leaves you with nothing else. Even when your body can't take it anymore, the only thing you can think about is that you NEED heroin.
I only spent a day in the studio. Then the stash ran out. Early in the morning, while everyone was sleeping, I quietly went out, left the door to the studio open, and left anyway. The guys couldn't stand it anymore.
“You know, Maloy,” they said. - You first solve the problem, and then we’ll write.
Usually, at twenty years of age, everything is just beginning for people. By this age I had lived a long life. Now it was coming to an end.
The end of the 1990s fell out of my life. Chemical dependency I experienced from all mind altering substances. I even sold my mother's washing machine. He called the Gazelle with the movers, and then my mother washed it by hand. I took everything that was in my parents’ apartment and sold it. This is normal for a junkie. Sooner or later, you will still find yourself alone in an empty apartment, and then you will sell the apartment too. The parents looked at what was happening with wild eyes. I spent everything they had accumulated throughout their lives in a few months.
By the end of the decade, I had no job, no gigs, no money, and no one left willing to lend me money. I needed $600 a month for heroin alone. I used to dance and participate in television music programs.
Now I stole, sold drugs and, leaving through the courtyards, scammed people.
When you're on hard drugs, it's always very close to prison. I once stole money from a very serious man right out of his wallet. We rode in cars, smoked, then the man left and left his wallet. There was a wad of money lying there that was this thick. And I took some of this money. Although even at that moment I realized: under no circumstances should I do this.
The man was very serious. They found me quickly, almost immediately. The man looked me in the face for a long time, and then said:
- I give you time to give back what you took. Then we will see what to do with you.
And the worst thing was loneliness. No matter who is nearby, you are still alone. You yourself surround yourself with loneliness with all your might. You can't trust anyone. Neither girls, nor friends. Not to myself. Especially for yourself.
You know, the real suicides are not those who try to hang themselves or jump from the roof, but those who see death as the only way out. There is certainly nothing you can do to save such people. By the age of twenty I had just reached this stage.
I'll throw myself - that's all. Then, if you want, solve your problems yourself. But without me.
Drugs, debts, lack of money, bandits, physical pain and a complete lack of meaning in everything that was happening... I had to stop... I had to admit that I was going in the wrong direction... I had to turn around and try to start all over again... but it seemed like dying much easier.
The cult rap artist of the 90s, Mr. Maloy, who at one time seemed to have sunk into the water, is now again traveling around Russia with concerts, but gathering small club venues. In the capital of Bashkiria, Andrei - this is the artist’s real name - performed at the Pravda club. He recorded the legendary track “I will destroy the little ones” in 1992 at the age of 13 and since then he considers himself the inventor of the original styles of “funkopunk” and “steborep”. Now music critics They call Andrey the prototype of Decl.
As a teenager, I was never drawn to people my age. My surroundings were an order of magnitude older than me. This is how “Maloy” appeared, and later, as if for show-off, for the sake of respectability they assigned “Mister”. And so it happened,” he talks about the origin of his stage name Andrey.
“Russian show business is rotten”
The album “I will destroy the little ones” was released in 1995 and sold several million copies. Subsequently, Mr. Maloy recorded several more hits - “Slag-Donalds”, “Dempanskoye Shavochki”, “Hands off Michael Jackson!”
In total, from 1994 to 2005, Mister Maloy, with the participation of the Drunken Boys (lyricists of Maloy Tengiz and Khot), released seven albums. He starred in four documentaries, gave more than five hundred concerts and took part in a huge number of music festivals and shares. But suddenly he disappeared from the sight of fans.
Whatever they wrote about me, especially when I dropped out of the public eye. And that I was corrupted, drunk, and stabbed. And as if I was kidnapped, demanding a ransom... It’s disgusting to remember, - the performer, who will turn thirty next year, winces.
Meanwhile, he casually, but not without pride, notes that at a certain stage of his life he was able to quit drugs and return to normal life.
So now I “stick out” exclusively from creativity,” he smiles slyly.
- How did you manage to get rid of drug addiction? After all, you were a drug addict with decent experience...- we’re trying to get Maly to talk.
The rehabilitation center helped me, but returning to normal life was very difficult. My so-called “meditations” were not aimed at anything good. During the time I took drugs, I only grew older and came back destroyed. In general, this topic offends me a little, because it exists public opinion about drug addiction and everyone is arguing about how to treat drug addicts. But, as a rule, all these speakers have never seen people in such a state and do not know how they feel. For example, deintoxication did not help me, and in general it helps very few people. Do you know what it looks like? A man comes to the clinic who is already very ill. He is injected with medicine for five days, and all this time he sleeps. Then he is released, being sure that he has started new life and immediately goes to buy drugs.
- Do you regret your actions today?
Today I really like myself. Still, I achieved a lot, went through a lot. But for some reason, sometimes I have regrets about wasted time and about some actions from my past life. But by and large, my life was very bright and eventful, I learned great amount interesting people.
- How did Maly’s mother react when she heard his first album?
My mom likes absolutely everything I do, even though the lyrics are completely incomprehensible to her. Of course, the words “I will die young” did not fit into her head at all, but, nevertheless, when she saw my photographs on the front pages of newspapers, she was very happy. This happened in 1994 at the Generation-94 festival. As fate would have it, I then took second place, but despite this, it was me who appeared on the front pages of the newspapers, and in an embrace with Natalya Vetlitskaya. I dreamed of standing next to this singer since childhood. For the execution of this cherished dream I am still very grateful to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.
- Why did you conduct all kinds of linguistic experiments in your songs?
Well, we just love making up new words. There is a place in St. Petersburg called “Ospekt Illumination”. Few people know that the slang that was fashionable in those years was born there. My musician friends and I came up with words that became part of the everyday life of partygoers and ravers. For example, “patimania” or “Lucy”, which meant the drug LSD. Our texts contain a lot of different slang - drug slang, party slang and even thieves' slang. Mister Small's songs were a symbiosis of all slangs, the language that pensioners do not communicate in.
-Who was your idol?
Alone for a very long time clever man said: “Do not recreate for yourself an idol.” So I don’t have any idols, but I can express my respect to Viktor Tsoi. As a child, I constantly listened to the tracks of this legendary dude. But something turned upside down in me after I heard the team “Thermonuclear Jam”, with which we subsequently created the group “Mr. Small”. I learned all the lyrics of “Jam” by heart and read their songs to any rhythm.
- How do you assess the current situation on the rap scene in Russia?
We have a lot of original and talented artists. Unfortunately, all this originality does not reach listeners and viewers. On stage today are only Seryoga, Timati, Casta, Pavel Volya and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The entire Russian show business is rotten, because so many talents cannot get on television and they do not have rotations on radio stations. We do not have musical development like in the West. The situation on the Russian rap platform is extremely bad. Of course, this could still change, but it's not happening yet. But any person has the opportunity to become famous using the Internet, as the trash tent “Kach” did. I know the leader of this project Sergei “Masterboy” well and respect him very much. He makes fun of everything that comes to hand. By the way, as soon as Viktor Drobysh filed a lawsuit against him, Andrei Razin immediately called Sergei and promised to find the best lawyers. By the way, “Kach” does not get personal at all; with his scandalous song, he simply perfectly described the situation in our show business.
“Young people only fuck and go shopping”
You were supposed to participate in the project “You are a Superstar”, but did not pass the casting...
At this casting, I performed two songs - “I will die young” and “Slag-Donalds”, and all the jury members sang along with me, as they knew these lines by heart. I was, of course, very pleased. After all, it’s one thing when ordinary spectators sing along and it’s a completely different thing when you are supported by people who have achieved a lot in show business. However, I didn’t get into the show and I don’t regret it at all. It's no secret that there is a certain approved scenario and the results were already known in advance. After watching a couple of programs, I was very glad that I didn’t get into this show. The idea itself is much more interesting than its implementation. But, of course, I was still pleased to come to Moscow for the casting. I saw my old friends from Rostov, finally hugged Seryoga Krylov and met many more people.
Go shopping and get laid.
Ilya Stogov wrote a book called “Sinners”, where he outlined in detail the biographies of Mister Small and his way of life...
Well, I don't agree with everything he did about our conversations. I like some of Stogov's things, his style and commercial approach to publishing books. We sat with him for several days, talked, he wrote down everything I said. But I didn’t like what happened in the end; I didn’t agree with everything. Still, the story about me contained more of Ilya’s thoughts than my own. In general, journalists often misunderstand me. For example, the “Maximum” program on NTV turned everything upside down. Their film crew filmed me for three days, the topic of the plot was: “How people live after fame.” Of course, I tell you with all the openness of my soul how great everything is with me, what progress Mr. Small is making. But it turned out that they needed to show how bad everything was for me and develop the theme “oh, poor former stars" It turned out that this can be done very easily using installation. Bam, and in the sentence “I don’t do drugs” the particle is not simply removed. Or, for example, in a club on the dance floor we were chatting with a correspondent, and I told him completely off camera that it’s cool to feel like a retro performer at 28 years old. And then in the plot I see the following: “Mr. Maloy admitted to us in confidence that it is very difficult to be a retro performer at 28 years old.” When I watched the program to the end, I was in real shock. But what can you do, such things remain on everyone’s conscience.
The album “I will perish with little smoke” sold millions of copies and was re-released several times. The lyrics and music of the album were written by Denis “Tengiz” Chernyshov and, formerly known as the “T-Jam” project. In 1994 it was adopted strategic decision- move to Moscow. In 1997, Mr. Maloy recorded the album “Catch Courage”, the lyrics and music of which were also written by Chernyshev and Sadykov. In 1997, Tengiz, Hot and Vis, who joined them, created the group Drunken Boys, which became famous for the songs “A and B” and “Hands Off Michael Jackson.” In 2009, Merab “Hot” Sadykov died of pulmonary tuberculosis.
The songs performed by Mr. Maloy were included in several feature films (“One love in a million”) and documentaries (“Tunnel”), as well as in a computer game (“Nuclear Titbit”), which received the award “Best Quest 2004” at the All-Russian Gameland Awards ceremony.
In 2009, the presentation of the Internet single “Thanks to Fifty Center for This” took place.
In March 2014 it was presented new clip Malimpiad (with TOP 9 entries). The artist promised to release an album of the same name, but as in the case of the 2009 album “On the High Shores of Glamor,” the album was never created.
In 2014, Mister Small stopped joint activities with Denis Chernyshev.
Discography
Studio albums
- 1994 - I will perish with little smoke
- 1997 - Get Courage
- 2002 - smoked. Boo...
- 2002 - A and B were on the needle (with the group “Drunken Boys”)
- 2004 - Slag-Donalds (with the group “Drunken Boys”)
- 2008 - On the high shores of glamor (not published)
- 2014 - Malimpiad (not published)
Collections
- 2004 - Re-release of the albums “I will die with little smoke” and “Catch courage” on one CD
- 2004 - BEST-oloch!
- 2005 - Mr. Small and Ego Buddies: Malekula
- 2005 - Drink little!
- 2005 - Complete Kal-Lecture mp3
Clips
- 1992 - I will perish with little smoke
- 2005 - Yes, Yes, Yes
- 2006 - Slag-Donalds
- 2012 - Delta Plan
- 2014 - Malimpiad
Participation in projects
- Host of the radio program "Doremix" radio "Record" (1997)
- "Fight Club on MTV" (2003);
- TV advertisement “Legal Product” (2005);
- Soundtracks for computer games“Nuclear Titbit” and “Nevsky Titbit” (2006);
- Host of the TV program “Kachai”, O2 TV channel (2006);
- Scoring for the film “A Very Epic Movie” (2007)
- Dubbing of the 3D cartoon “Terkel and Trouble” (2007);
- Soundtrack for the film “One Love in a Million”,
- Soundtrack for Finnish documentary film"PIETARI UNDERGROUND" (2007)
- Art project “Ink” (mash-up of photography and modern illustration) (2011)
- Participation in the video together with Vadik Kupe, Mike from White Smoke Clan, Basta and Smokey Mo (2013)
- Participation in the 3D musical "Juliet and Romeo" - the role of a DJ and drug dealer (2015)
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Excerpt characterizing Mister Small
– Vous m"avez sauve la vie. Vous etes Francais. Vous me demandez sa grace? Je vous l"accorde. Qu"on emmene cet homme, [You saved my life. You are a Frenchman. Do you want me to forgive him? I forgive him. Take this man away," the French officer said quickly and energetically, taking the hand of the one who had earned him for saving his life into the French Pierre, and went with him to the house.The soldiers who were in the yard, hearing the shot, entered the vestibule, asking what had happened and expressing their readiness to punish those responsible; but the officer strictly stopped them.
“On vous demandera quand on aura besoin de vous, [When necessary, you will be called," he said. The soldiers left. The orderly, who had meanwhile managed to be in the kitchen, approached the officer.
“Capitaine, ils ont de la soupe et du gigot de mouton dans la cuisine,” he said. - Faut il vous l "apporter? [Captain, they have soup and fried lamb in the kitchen. Would you like to bring it?]
“Oui, et le vin, [Yes, and wine,”] said the captain.
The French officer and Pierre entered the house. Pierre considered it his duty to again assure the captain that he was not a Frenchman and wanted to leave, but the French officer did not want to hear about it. He was so courteous, kind, good-natured and truly grateful for saving his life that Pierre did not have the spirit to refuse him and sat down with him in the hall, in the first room they entered. In response to Pierre's assertion that he was not a Frenchman, the captain, obviously not understanding how one could refuse such a flattering title, shrugged his shoulders and said that if he certainly wanted to pass for a Russian, then let it be so, but that he, despite then, everyone is still forever connected with him with a feeling of gratitude for saving his life.
If this man had been gifted with at least some ability to understand the feelings of others and had guessed about Pierre’s feelings, Pierre would probably have left him; but this man’s animated impenetrability to everything that was not himself defeated Pierre.
“Francais ou prince russe incognito, [Frenchman or Russian prince incognito," said the Frenchman, looking at Pierre’s dirty but thin linen and the ring on his hand. – Je vous dois la vie je vous offre mon amitie. Un Francais n "oublie jamais ni une insulte ni un service. Je vous offre mon amitie. Je ne vous dis que ca. [I owe you my life, and I offer you friendship. The Frenchman never forgets either insult or service. I offer my friendship to you. I say nothing more.]
There was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense) in the sounds of the voice, in the facial expression, in the gestures of this officer that Pierre, responding with an unconscious smile to the Frenchman’s smile, shook the outstretched hand.
- Capitaine Ramball du treizieme leger, decore pour l "affaire du Sept, [Captain Ramball, thirteenth light regiment, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for the cause of the seventh of September," he introduced himself with a smug, uncontrollable smile that wrinkled his lips under his mustache. - Voudrez vous bien me dire a present, a qui" j"ai l"honneur de parler aussi agreablement au lieu de rester a l"ambulance avec la balle de ce fou dans le corps [Will you be so kind as to tell me now who I am with. I have the honor of talking so pleasantly, instead of being at a dressing station with a bullet from this madman in my body?]
Pierre replied that he could not say his name, and, blushing, began, trying to invent a name, to talk about the reasons why he could not say this, but the Frenchman hastily interrupted him.
“De grace,” he said. – Je comprends vos raisons, vous etes officier... officier superieur, peut être. Vous avez porte les armes contre nous. Ce n"est pas mon affaire. Je vous dois la vie. Cela me suffit. Je suis tout a vous. Vous etes gentilhomme? [To be complete, please. I understand you, you are an officer... a staff officer, perhaps. You served against us . This is not my business. I owe you my life. This is enough for me, and I am all yours.] - he added with a hint of a question. Je ne demande pas davantage. Monsieur Pierre, dites vous... Parfait. C "est tout ce que je desire savoir. [Your name? I don’t ask anything else. Monsieur Pierre, did you say? Great. That’s all I need.]
When fried lamb, scrambled eggs, a samovar, vodka and wine from the Russian cellar, which the French had brought with them, were brought, Rambal asked Pierre to take part in this dinner and immediately, greedily and quickly, like a healthy and hungry person, began to eat, quickly chewing with his strong teeth, constantly smacking his lips and saying excellent, exquis! [wonderful, excellent!] His face was flushed and covered with sweat. Pierre was hungry and gladly took part in the dinner. Morel, the orderly, brought a saucepan with warm water and put a bottle of red wine in it. In addition, he brought a bottle of kvass, which he took from the kitchen for testing. This drink was already known to the French and received its name. They called kvass limonade de cochon (pork lemonade), and Morel praised this limonade de cochon, which he found in the kitchen. But since the captain had wine obtained during the passage through Moscow, he provided kvass to Morel and took up a bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up to the neck in a napkin and poured himself and Pierre some wine. Satisfied hunger and wine revived the captain even more, and he continued talking during dinner.
That year, the very first Russian rap cassette went on sale. On the one hand, the group “Bachelor Party” was recorded, in which Dolphin read, and on the other, “Thermonuclear Jam” was recorded. Tengiz and Khot were celestial beings for me
Released in July of this year A new book famous St. Petersburg writer Ilya Stogov "Sinners". One of his first works, “Macho Men Don’t Cry,” is practically a programmatic piece for those born in the 70s. Reviewers most often compared Stogov with Kerouac, Burroughs and Dovlatov. Now the writer is preparing a book about domestic hip-hop, which we will definitely tell you about soon.
“Sinners” is a confession of 15 cult figures of the St. Petersburg underground, including Mister Small. A cult figure of the 90s, for many he became the first association with the word “rap”. Having become incredibly popular throughout the country at the age of 13, he went through a lot, which he talks about on the pages of this book...
Mister Maloy (b. 1979) - rap star
Once in the “Tunnel” I met a girl. We left the club, dropped into the nearest front door, I sat her on the windowsill, pulled my penis out of her panties, spread her legs... The girl closed her eyes: “Wow!”... Along the way, she became emotional, screamed loudly, threw her head back, - and knocked the frame out of the window with the back of her head. The noise was terrible. I even sat down in fright. Adjusting our clothes as we went, we ran out of the front door. However, no one reacted to the roar. We smoked and the girl asked me to finish what I started. But this time we went to a different front door.
The “tunnel” opened in May 1993. I started going there constantly. I visited the first techno clubs “Tunnel” and “Planetarium”, went to squats on the Fontanka and Obvodny Canal. Grown-up guys hung out there: fashionistas, partygoers, bandits, DJs, artists, some stunning women... And I was barely 14 years old.
I don't know why they were all messing with me. This has been the case all my life, since childhood: adults immediately accepted me into their company, treated me as equals, laughed at my jokes, were not jealous of their women and treated me to the most expensive drugs in the world...
I was born on Prosveshcheniya Avenue. During the time of Alexander Blok and Igor Severyanin, it was a prestigious holiday village. By the end of the twentieth century, Prosvet turned into the St. Petersburg Bronx.
The main rap groups in the country live within a two-stop radius around my house. And DJ Tengiz opened the very first rap studio in the country at Prosvet. The studio is located in the house where Anatoly Sobchak, the first mayor of St. Petersburg, lived twenty years ago.
Here his daughter, Ksenia Sobchak, was born and the neighbors still remember how in the evenings the mayor would go out into the yard to use a plastic stick to knock out the rug hanging on the rickety football goal.
As soon as he became mayor, Sobchak moved to the center. And I still live in the house in which I was born. My entire biography took place in front of my neighbors. When I meet, I always say hello to them.
My current girlfriend is surprised:
- Do you really know all these people?
I don’t know how it is in her area, but in Prosvet it’s normal. When meeting, people said hello, went to visit each other, and in the evenings they all watched black and white TV together.
My mother raised my brother and me alone. Dad was a submariner. He went on a combat raid for six months, then returned and rested as hard as he could until he set sail again. And my mother ran around, took care of the children, stood in lines, received some kind of food stamps...
My brother is five years older than me. He grew up calmer. Once on the radio he heard an announcement about enrollment in a modern dance school. He got excited and said that he would definitely sign up, and I went with him for company. One of the subjects at school was called “rap dance”. It was wildly fashionable back then. I just turned 12 years old.
The dance teacher turned out to be a funny man. He had dyed red hair and a bowl-cut hairstyle. In principle, he taught completely different dances, not the ones that interested us. But it was at his school that I met a guy who took me to a breakdancers’ party for the first time. Then I learned dancing there.
I went to dances at the Courier disco club, the Lensovet Palace of Culture and the Youth Palace. I grabbed it easily. He could immediately repeat any movement.
Soon I became almost the main star in this party. Dancing in the hall seemed cramped to me and I constantly climbed onto the stage.
At the Lensoviet Palace of Culture, dances were held every weekend. I didn't miss a single evening. I had nothing to pay for entry. I agreed with the owners of the disco that I would dance on stage, and for this they would let me in for free. There were no professional dancers in any club in those years. Soon I met the DJ who worked at these dances. It turned out that we were neighbors: the guy lived two houses away from me. His name was Andrey Repnikov. I started going only to those dances where Andrei DJed, I spent hours at his house, he introduced me to the whole hip-hop crowd and now I only talked with those people with whom Andrei talked.
This is still not clear to me. I was almost a child, and these guys - they were completely adults. Andrey was already over twenty. His friends were making the most modern music in the country, and I just knew how to dance beautifully. What interest did they have in communicating with the little boy?
You know, sometimes on the street or in a cafe you can meet families, looking at whom you immediately understand: everything is fine with them. The child loves his parents, and the parents love each other and always smile when they look at the child. It wasn't like that in my family. That is, in childhood I had this feeling... but I probably missed it. Dad was at sea, Mom had to survive. Sometimes it began to seem to me as if right now, at this moment, no one loved me at all... no one, no one thought about me... and the world was collapsing, and it would have been easier, probably, to die. I ran out of the house into the street and looked for people around whom I didn’t have to think about it.
Andrei's dad is a fairly famous classical composer. But he lived separately, in another city, and Andrei’s apartment was always free. I went to him in the morning, woke him up, and we spent together around the clock. I was always there.
One day we visited DJ Michael Pugo. The day before, Michael bought a pack of fashionable long “Three Bogatyrs” cigarettes at the Beryozka currency store. He boasted for a long time about how long and cool these cigarettes were, twirled the pack in his hands, and then said that it was probably time to quit.
I had seen my brother's friends smoking many times before. But they never treated me. Here no one paid attention to my age. The marijuana itself was not important to me, what was important was what happened next. We smoked, drank beer or tea - and talked endlessly. We talked to each other. We were together.
I was finally happy.
By the way, I also had sex with the very first person in my class. When I got on stage at the Lensovet Palace of Culture and started dancing, all the girls in the hall looked at it with amazed eyes. One day, squeezing closer, one of them said that she didn’t have her parents at home today, and if I wanted, we could play the Dendy game console.
I told the guys in the class that I had girls - wow! That I have them - that’s the only way! But in fact, that time was my first. The girl was four years older than me: she was already seventeen. I stayed with her all night, and in the morning I went to share the news with my classmates. I knew for sure: none of them had ever had anything like this before. Among my peers, I was the coolest.
Then there were a lot of girls. The first more or less permanent girlfriend I had was a school acquaintance from a parallel class. Her name was Tanya. She was very beautiful. The first time we slept with her was simply a bet: can we do it or not? It seemed that Tanya began to be considered MY girlfriend, but I was not going to take all this seriously.
One day, a large group of us went to sunbathe, and then Tanya and my closest friend ended up at my house. I immediately reached into the girl’s panties. My grandmother was sleeping in the next room, and my friend was clearly intact, but neither one nor the other bothered me. I pulled off her panties, forced her to lie down, and pressed her with my whole body onto the sofa...
She pushed me away with weak hands and whispered:
- And Tanya? What about Tanya? What will you and I tell Tanya?
I pushed her clenched legs apart with my knees and explained:
- Tanya is my girlfriend. And you and I will just have fun.
The girl sobbed loudly. This just made me laugh. What exactly other people would think and feel did not interest me at all then.
What kind of study is there? Now I only went to school to drink beer with my classmates. At one time I even left home and moved in with Andrey. At that time, Andrei already had some kind of bride in mind, and the apartment was very small, but they were not shy at all and could easily chat with me about sex or treat me with something.
Besides me, British DJ Luke Mills lived at Andrey’s house. Sometimes DJ Groove stopped by, who was then writing the very first sets and had not yet turned into “The Great DJ-Groove.” Some new people appeared constantly.
Not far from our block is Sosnovsky Park. Andrey and I went there to sunbathe. Once on the beach he met friends - DJs from Tengiz and Khot. At that time, these two were doing the “Thermonuclear Jam” project.
That year, the very first Russian rap cassette went on sale. On the one hand, the group “Bachelor Party” was recorded, in which Dolphin read, and on the other, “Thermonuclear Jam” was recorded.
Tengiz and Khot were celestial beings for me. I knew all their lyrics by heart.
It was hot. We swam and lay on the sand, but I couldn’t just rest. I wanted to do something right now. I already tried to read some texts several times, but mostly at that time I was still a dancer.
I started asking the guys:
- Take me to dance with you! You will read, and I will dance on stage!
I stood up and showed a couple of moves. That summer, the American hip-hop project CrisCross was fashionable. These are two such cheerful little black kids who wore jeans turned backwards and sang the song Jump! Jump!
Tengiz and Khot looked at me carefully. I was small and cheerful.
Maybe try making a Russian CrisCross? - they thought, - What is your name?
- Barmaley.
- Barmaley? Somehow not very... Do you have any other nickname?
- Sometimes they call me “Little One”.
- It’s already better! Now you will be "Mr. Small"!
You know, as a child I had two big dreams. I wanted to be shown on TV and I also really liked the singer Natalya Vetlitskaya.
This woman has always had a fantastic effect on me. Just her photographs gave me goosebumps.
In 1994, we took the “Mr. Maloy” project to Moscow. We took part in the Generation 94 festival. The event was organized on a Moscow scale: a fashionable party, a lot of people, dozens of groups. They identified the best: who will become the leader of this very generation-94? We turned out to be the best.
In the early 1990s, there was no one else on this field except us. There was no other such project. Without investing a single cent in promotion, we simply did our job honestly and the whole country learned about us. Today this is no longer possible.
The festival organizers said that we would get first place and the main prize - we just need to sign a contract with them. But at that time we already had a contract. They tried to persuade us for some time, and then they waved their hand. Instead of first, we were given second place. It didn't matter, because the prize from the press and money from sponsors still went to us.
The prize was presented to me by Natalya Vetlitskaya. I stood on the stage of the heaviest and most official hall in the country and this was broadcast to an audience of two hundred million. I held Vetlitskaya by the waist, and she laughed and leaned over to kiss me. This picture was then printed on the front pages of all newspapers: the most beautiful woman in the country and me next to her.
Both dreams came true before I graduated from high school. I had to sit down and think about what to dream about next. But I simply didn’t have time to think calmly.
Very soon I began to spend most of my time on tour. The school principal couldn't wrap his head around this. She was sure that this was a lie and that I was simply skipping school. I was called to her office for a conversation, but the day before I called the producer and as a result, instead of me, a man in a jacket and with a briefcase appeared in the director’s office, who brought her a piece of paper from Moscow with a bunch of official seals: “Dear Mrs. Director! Please release the boy in connection with upcoming tours in the following cities of the country...” Next is a half-page list of cities.
I would love to send all these women wearing stupid glasses. To the question “Where is the homework?”, I would answer them: “Fuck you, you inarticulate mare! Can you imagine what level of people came to my concert yesterday?!” But none of this happened. I just batted my eyelashes and promised that this wouldn’t happen again.
Constant conversations: with teachers, with the class teacher, with the head teacher, with the square headmistress of the school... In terms of height in the class, I stood second from the bottom. A pitiful look, a skinny childish face... You make innocent eyes, promise everything they want, and until tomorrow you can live in peace.
I was afraid of teachers. It was something irrational. I knew that they wouldn’t be able to organize really serious troubles for me... they certainly wouldn’t be able to... and I was still afraid. Fear arose immediately as soon as they came closer and started looking at me.
I think these are traces of the USSR. I went to school exactly the year when Perestroika began. And when the USSR collapsed, I was not yet 12. But I still say “Soviet”, meaning “our”, “Russian”.
Anyone who has caught even a glimpse of the USSR will never be able to completely get rid of it. There is simply no cure for this.
Like cancer. Like a heroin addiction.
In the spring of that year, I walked from school with my briefcase, and my songs sounded from half the windows. After Generation 94, everything began to change very quickly. Officially, I continued to be a high school student. But I barely made it to my ninth grade graduation. It was clear that they simply would not allow me to move to number ten. The school director directly said that she could no longer see me. Only for the sake of me disappearing, at the final exams the teachers gave me a C grade. I didn’t know the school curriculum at all.
I studied at this school for eight years. I didn't see anything good from her. But school was at least some kind of stability. I was scared to completely break with my childhood. School - work - pension... My parents lived their lives this way and I was afraid to leave the well-trodden path.
After the summer holidays, I came to the director and began to ask to be allowed to continue studying. I said that I had matured, understood everything and now I would become different. The director was shocked. She didn’t believe a single word I said, but legally she couldn’t refuse. And I moved from ninth to tenth grade.
Of course, nothing came of this idea. The entire first quarter was spent on tour for me. From September to November I showed up to school twice at most. I never received a single grade. I had to leave school.
At the graduation party, the whole class drank vodka. How much did we children need? As soon as she had drunk, one of the girls started yelling that we were all pimply virgins, and she, by the way, was the first in the class to lose her virginity! She knows the taste of a man’s penis firsthand!.. This interested me.
I dragged the girl into the bathroom, turned her back to me, bent her over, unbuttoned her own jeans... It seems that she was a virgin after all. There was a lot of blood. Blood dripped down her legs onto the floor. The girl whispered that enough was enough... she felt unpleasant... she squirmed and tried to pick my dick out of herself with her fingers... I just wasn't paying attention. All the guys who were in the apartment crowded into the next room, climbed onto the toilet with their feet and took turns peeking through the ventilation holes to see what was happening.
Suddenly a lot of money appeared. We distributed the fees like this: the producer immediately took half of the amount, and the other half was divided between three people by me, Tengiz and Hot. That is, it reached me about fifteen percent, but it was quite decent money.
I was just a child. Everything he earned was spent on parties and drugs. To get rich, to acquire real estate, or a bank account - at that time I did not manage to do any of this. Yes, I didn’t strive for this. Life was already an endless pleasure.
To celebrate my coming of age, I rented a large Moscow club. There were about a hundred people invited, plus a bunch of simply beautiful girls. A good DJ played. I bought fruit, alcohol and some drugs. The guests brought the rest with them in huge quantities. I paid some money to the cops and they spent the whole evening making sure no one disturbed us.
The time was such that people climbed to the very top instantly. Yesterday you were a nobody, and today you are sitting in the most expensive club in Eastern Europe and police officers are making sure that no brute prevents you from snorting cocaine. True, you could have fallen back just as quickly. Going to prison was as realistic as becoming a millionaire.
Once at the Planetarium club, the cops grabbed me right at the entrance. Usually they didn’t search there and I relaxed: instead of putting it in my sock, I left the bag in my jeans pocket. The cop reached into my pocket, pulled out the puck and literally lit up with happiness:
- ABOUT! Hashish!
I was tempted to spit in his face:
- You were born a sucker, you die a sucker! What hashish? Don't you understand at all? This is “Chinese dust”!
That time everything worked out: friends sorted it out. I sat at the police picket until the morning, and then the senior officer named the price and they took me further away to the police station, and they released me.
Cocaine then cost $200 per gram. And heroin that just appeared in Moscow from somewhere in Africa - $300. No one really knew what this heroin was. Today, any schoolchild knows that there are drugs and there is heroin, and heroin is certain death. Then, the only thing I saw: heroin is one and a half times more expensive than coke. Which means it’s better, cooler and probably less harmful.
The people I hung out with back then were very serious. It is believed that bandos should only listen to chanson, but this is not true. In America, self-respecting criminals listen to rap, and the Leningrad bandits of the first generation were not at all stupid bulls. These people came from black marketeers, were used to communicating with foreigners and spoke the same slang in which I sang. You just can’t imagine what my song “I’ll Die Young!” meant to them.
It was these people who gave me heroin the first time. We did not inject it into a vein, but sniffed it beautifully from the tip of a knife. That time I vomited all over the apartment for the owners, but I really liked the drug itself. What I tried before was pretty harmless. There are no withdrawal symptoms, and it is impossible to die from an overdose. There are unpleasant psychological effects, but you can get through it... It seemed to me that the scary talk about heroin was also an exaggeration.
The producer called me: the next performance is there and there. I lectured “I will die young!”, received money and had nothing else to do. The days seemed endlessly long. The second time they treated me too, and the third time I went to the dealer with the money. The dealer was Azerbaijani. I knew his roof. For a while he sold it to me at a deep discount. The further I went, the more often I dropped by to see him, and then suddenly I discovered that I was hooked.
It scared me, but not very much. I decided that I would just change the situation. I’ll go to Moscow: another city, everything all over again, no familiar dealers. I’ll work hard and forget about heroin. The first two days I was broken. But on the third day I felt like I was born again. I thought that now I could only get by with alcohol and marijuana.
All the talk about addiction is not about me.
As befits strong guys, I managed to keep the situation under control. Therefore, I decided that it would be nice to find a place in Moscow where I could drop by to buy heroin if I suddenly needed it urgently... and in general - so be it. Of course, I immediately found a huge variety of sellers. Then everything happened quickly. With heroin, everything happens very quickly.
I firmly decided that I would use it extremely rarely and only a little at a time. And if so, then it would be nice to get maximum pleasure from this business. Everyone said that sniffing was a pointless waste. Heroin needs to be injected directly into a vein - then you will feel a real buzz. And I switched to intravenous injections. And after some time - already a complete heroin addict - I returned back to St. Petersburg.
Still, it hasn't been a problem yet. I had friends, a job, and the best women in the world. Everything I wanted became mine. The life I led suited me completely.
Together with Tengiz and Khot, we sat down in the studio to write a new album. Things were hardly moving: my huckster lived exactly opposite the studio. In the mornings, I first went to see him and only then went to pee. The guys tried to explain that this was impossible. It was impossible to explain anything to me.
I have established a daily life cycle. I need to make myself some heroin in the morning. Just to live. During the day I smoked a certain amount of marijuana, and in the evening I arrived at the club. There I drank alcohol and ate pills or amphetamines. If he found someone with cocaine, he could snort the cocaine. Then there’s alcohol and marijuana. I danced, smoked, drank and took pills again. In the morning, in order to fall asleep, I had to take heroin. This went on for five years in a row. I tried not to think about what would happen next.
Heroin is a huge burden on the body. Any addict knows: if you don’t want to quit quickly, you need to take a break from heroin from time to time. You use for several months in a row, then you break, you don’t use for a while, you give your body a rest and only after that you can start all over again.
It wasn't like that for me. I was very afraid of physical pain. I could withstand the withdrawal symptoms for a maximum of a day, and on the morning of the second day I was already knocking on the door of the dealer. Instead of stopping and taking a break, I used heroin every day for five years. The body cannot be repaired from such a load. I haven’t had a single tooth left in my mouth for a long time, and there isn’t a single organ in my body that doesn’t bother me today.
The guys from the group tried to talk to me:
- It’s good to come to the studio whipped! Let's sign up, and then go wherever you want!
- Yes! - I said. - Certainly! Starting tomorrow we will do this!
In the morning I came to the crossroads, looked at the studio, then at the house where the huckster lives, then again at the studio - and still I went to the huckster first. The guys are tired of it. They even tried to put me right in the studio so that I could break things there. You will plunge into work and forget about everything, they said. But these methods will not solve the problem. When heroin enters your life, it leaves you with nothing else. Even when your body can't take it anymore, the only thing you can think about is that you NEED heroin.
I only spent a day in the studio. Then the stash ran out. Early in the morning, while everyone was sleeping, I quietly went out, left the door to the studio open, and left anyway. The guys couldn't stand it anymore.
“You know, Maloy,” they said. - You first solve the problem, and then we’ll write.
Usually, at twenty years of age, everything is just beginning for people. By this age I had lived a long life. Now it was coming to an end.
The end of the 1990s fell out of my life. I experienced chemical dependence on all mind-altering substances. I even sold my mother's washing machine. He called the Gazelle with the movers, and then my mother washed it by hand. I took everything that was in my parents’ apartment and sold it. This is normal for a junkie. Sooner or later, you will still find yourself alone in an empty apartment, and then you will sell the apartment too. The parents looked at what was happening with wild eyes. I spent everything they had accumulated throughout their lives in a few months.
By the end of the decade, I had no job, no gigs, no money, and no one left willing to lend me money. I needed $600 a month for heroin alone. I used to dance and participate in television music programs.
Now I stole, sold drugs and, leaving through the courtyards, scammed people.
When you're on hard drugs, it's always very close to prison. I once stole money from a very serious man right out of his wallet. We rode in cars, smoked, then the man left and left his wallet. There was a wad of money lying there that was this thick. And I took some of this money. Although even at that moment I realized: under no circumstances should I do this.
The man was very serious. They found me quickly, almost immediately. The man looked me in the face for a long time, and then said:
- I give you time to give back what you took. Then we will see what to do with you.
And the worst thing was loneliness. No matter who is nearby, you are still alone. You yourself surround yourself with loneliness with all your might. You can't trust anyone. Neither girls, nor friends. Not to myself. Especially for yourself.
You know, the real suicides are not those who try to hang themselves or jump from the roof, but those who see death as the only way out. There is certainly nothing you can do to save such people. By the age of twenty I had just reached this stage.
I'll throw myself - that's all. Then, if you want, solve your problems yourself. But without me.
Drugs, debts, lack of money, bandits, physical pain and a complete lack of meaning in everything that was happening... I had to stop... I had to admit that I was going in the wrong direction... I had to turn around and try to start all over again... but it seemed like dying much easier.
Mr. Small as a child
Mr. Maloy, or in childhood simply Andrei Tsyganov, was born in Leningrad. The upbringing of Maly and his brother lay entirely on the shoulders of the mother, because the father, who served on a submarine, spent most of his time in the raid, and when he returned to shore, he did little with the children.What Andrey remembers most from his childhood was the atmosphere that reigned in the house, the relationship with neighbors, when you could visit without an invitation, and people spent their evenings gathered around a black-and-white TV. To someday appear on a television screen was the boy’s main dream, which seemed so distant then. Another dream - meeting Natalya Vetlitskaya, seemed no less unrealizable.
At the age of 12, Mr. Small first became interested in dancing. The initiative to sign up for the studio came from his brother, and Andrei went along with the company. Very soon he realized which areas were interesting to him, and following what he had gained in dance school a friend went to learn breakdancing.
Undoubted natural abilities allowed Maly to easily master new movements. Gradually, he became a regular at dance evenings held at the Palace of Youth and the Lensovet Palace of Culture, and since Andrei did not have the money to pay for admission, he agreed with the organizers that he would go on stage to ignite the audience.
Here Maly made his first professional acquaintances. DJ Andrey Repnikov, who worked at the Lensovet Palace of Culture, introduced the very young Maly into his company, introduced him to people who were passionate about modern music and dancing.
Mister Small's first successes in music
Dating with representatives musical movement was not in vain for Maly. Tsyganov was introduced to the participants of the “Thermonuclear Jam” project by the same Andrei Repnikov. Then they seemed like stars and celestial beings.Live Mister Maloy
However, such a chance could not be missed. Mr. Maloy suggested organizing a joint program where he would do what he does best - dance. The positive answer was not long in coming. And it was a breakthrough. The country had never seen anything like this before, and first place in the “Generation-94” competition, held in Moscow, was secured for the guys for the young and ambitious project “Mr.Maloy”.
The only condition for receiving the main prize was signing a contract with the organizer, which turned out to be categorically impossible for young people, then they had to make room from the top of Olympus, but the second prize place provided the group with a substantial cash sum and public recognition. And now a fifteen-year-old teenager stands on stage under the spotlights of the cameras, and Natalya Vetlitskaya herself presents him with the award. It seems that all dreams have already come true.
However, 1995 was no less successful. The young artist received the approval of key figures music industry and was named "Best Artist of the Year". The same year, the artist’s first studio album, “I’ll Die Young,” was released, which was subsequently reissued several times. At the peak of glory
Mr. Small - I will die young ©1992
The fame that suddenly fell on the teenager was pleasant, but what to do with it? Maloy somehow made it to the 9th grade, because most of his time was taken up by touring activities, and he had to leave the 10th grade. Despite this, his life was one continuous holiday. Clubs, entertainment, drinking, drugs.
Maloy did not even think about putting aside any savings or purchasing real estate. However, the wild lifestyle was addictive, and the drugs wouldn’t let me go. Most recently at the peak of his popularity, by the end of the 90s Mr. Maloy was left without friends, livelihood, and the path to the stage was closed for him. According to the artist, he was visited more than once by suicidal thoughts.