Generation Cancellation is the new title of the Russian group Little Big, released on June 24 and accompanied by a very committed clip on YouTube. The musicians describe the track, sung in English, as a “anti-war manifesto”, reports the Russian independent media (based in Latvia) Jellyfishand are added to the list of renowned Russian artists denouncing the war in Ukraine, such as the rock group Aquarium or the rapper Oxxxymiron.
“The clip refers to politicians, the Russian army, and depicts the devastation caused by Putin’s troops”, explains the American magazine Newsweek. The members thus declare, in their clip, to want to denounce “war, propaganda and the political world”.
Little Big is a quartet that presents itself as a music group “punk pop rave”. Formed in 2013 in Saint Petersburg, he was to represent Russia in 2020 during Eurovision with the song One. The competition having been canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, their performance was broadcast only on YouTube, becoming the most viewed among all those of Eurovision, with more than 243 million views, counts Newsweek.
“No one deserves war”
Ilya Proussikine, or “Illitch”, leader of the group, explains in a press release quoted by Jellyfish and translated in part by Newsweek that there remains “very attached to his country, but totally disapproves of the war in Ukraine, convinced that any act of war is inadmissible”. He pursues :
“We condemn the actions of the Russian government, and we are so disgusted by the Kremlin’s military propaganda that we have decided to drop everything and leave the country.”
In the description of their clip on YouTube we can read “The war is not over. No to war in Ukraine. No to all wars. No one deserves war”, in Russian and English. The group members had previously posted their opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on their respective Instagram accounts, with the inscription “No War”.
On the Little Big website, we learn that the group left Russia to settle in Los Angeles, without giving the precise date of their departure.
More political
Little Big has four albums and nine singles to its credit, recalls Newsweek. their latest song strays from what the band, renowned for their satirical songs poking fun at stereotypes about Russia, such as Everyday I’m Drinking (“I drink every day”), his first hit, released in 2013, or Skibidi (2018), which had been a worldwide success thanks in particular to an improbable choreography staged in the clip.
More politicalGeneration Cancellation above all represents their commitment “against the war in Ukraine, but also against all the other conflicts that are ravaging the rest of the world”.
Asked about the direction that their future projects will take by Office Magazinethey remain evasive, claiming that “life is full of surprises, and [qu]’there is no point drawing plans on the comet’. “What must happen will happen. Stay the course, no matter the risks, that’s our slogan”, explains Illitch, assuring that “the next tracks will be more like what[ils ont] used to doing”.