Four years ago, in October of 2012, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for “hooliganism” after staging a protest performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Pussy Riot leveraged performance and punk rock to critique the Putin regime as well as the Russian Orthodox Church. Although music was initially incidental to the project, Pussy Riot was championed in the Western imagination and among the international pop elite as a band—a characterization made manifest as Tolokno and Alyokhina were writ into riot-grrrl herstory and invited to perform alongside Madonna at a 2014 Amnesty International concert at the Barclays Center upon their release. As of last year, the pair has been releasing music for the music sphere, including the Eric Garner tribute “I Can’t Breathe,” a Le Tigre collaboration made for “House of Cards,” and a pro-refugee track filmed in Banksy’s Dismaland. Now, Tolokno is releasing a solo EP on Atlantic imprint Nice Life, produced by TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek (who Tolokno also worked with on the chilling anti-corruption track “Chaika”).
Now, in a season where “pussy” has become a household word again, albeit for all the wrong reasons, the original pussy provocateurs have returned to exact their vengeance on macho would-be-rulers the world over. At least, that’s the narrative for Nadya Tolokno’s xxx EP. Working with pop music as a medium makes total sense for Tolokno, considering her irrefutable magnetism and keen understanding of media weaponization as well as the deity-like status with which we imbue pop music icons. That said, it’s disappointing to see the Pussy Riot name, which was built on principles of non-hierarchy, collectivity, and anti-capitalism, leveraged as a personal brand—something she has been critiqued for both by former members of the Pussy Riot collective and by other Russian feminists and activists. (Tolokno maintains that the Pussy Riot name can be taken up by anyone but as one meaning gets reified, the rest dematerialize.)
The songs on xxx are a mixed bag. Two of the three tracks are written in English and either directly or indirectly anti-Trump. At a time when “the Russians” are synonymous with Bond villains or election hacking, there’s something thrilling about seeing Tolokno fire back at America’s own villainous tendencies. However, both of these tracks can ring a little hollow.
Tolokno has said that “Straight Outta Vagina” was written as a response to patriarchy, misogyny, and the overrepresentation of dicks in pop music. In a phallocentric world where normalized derision of vaginas leads to lifelong body image issues, there’s a reason that Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party is in the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection. On the other hand, at a time when genital-centered essentialism is used by to perpetuate violence and to call for violent legislation against trans women, suggesting that only people with vaginas are affected by misogyny feels irresponsibly cis-sexist.
Out of all the anti-Trump songs coming out recently, “Make America Great Again” is the most direct. It’s an earworm that’s not quite as disastrous as Le Tigre’s pro-Hillary jingle, though if we’re going by Tolokno’s own criteria (“Let other people in/Listen to your women/Stop killing black children”) it would be far more accurate to say that America Was Never Great. While the lyrics are relatively low key, the accompanying video is all-out brutal, splicing dystopian footage of real Trump speeches with gruesome imagery of Tolokno being branded, sexually assaulted, and tortured by Trump goons in orange wigs.
One of the more mesmerizing tracks is “Organs,” a deft Russian-language track (English translation can be read by enabling closed captions in YouTube) with Tolokno rapping on the interplay of bodies and the body politic while bathing nude in a tub of blood. “In 2014, I was released from prison and put into a bloody bath,” Tolokno tells The-Village.ru, citing “the annexation of Crimea, the fighting on the territory of Ukraine, the downed Boeing, attacks on political activists (including ourselves), the murder of [liberal politician] Boris Nemtsov.”
The inspiration behind “Organs” is a sobering reminder that, burgeoning music profile aside, Tolokno is undertaking tangible, dangerous activism with regards to the Russian prison system. Shortly after getting out, Tolokno and Alyokhina co-founded Zona Prava, (Zone of Rights) an advocacy group meant to provide legal aid and informational support to prisoners, as well as Zona Pravda (Zone of Truth), a media site dedicated to in-depth coverage of courts, prisons, and labor camps, including trials, human rights abuses, hunger strikes.
The video for “Straight Outta Vagina” co-stars a young girl in a balaclava, implying the potential of a new generation of feminists. Thinking about the inadequate, cursory coverage that the ongoing prison strike has gotten in American media, I can’t help but hope that the next generation is inspired not just by Tolokno’s fearlessness as a performer but also her fearlessness as an activist.
