Singing on Q: The role of contemporary Kazakh language music in national identity building among Kazakhstani youth

Aleksei Levshin, who conducted the Russian Empire’s first ethnographic study of Kazakhs in 1832, wrote that he could not “decide what the Kazakhs are.” He did not know what to make of informants who responded so vaguely to his questions about their religious and cultural identities; it did not occur to him that the normative categories he was trying to fit them into might not be universally applicable.

Nearly a century later, Soviet authorities concluded that whatever the Kazakhs were was less important than what they needed them to be: living proof that every nation had a place in the Soviet system. Over the course of seventy years, Kazakhs became, according to writer Azamat Sarsembayev, “the most Sovietized and Russified nation of all Soviet nations.” The nomadic way of life was extinguished at a horrific human cost and traditional practices and the Kazakh language were repressed. In their place, as Stephen M. Norris points out, an ideologically sanitized vision of Soviet Kazakhness was elevated, centered around traditional music and historical heroes.

Nevertheless, “there was still a strong awareness of a specifically Kazakh identity,” according to Sarsembayev, even if the leaders of newly independent Kazakhstan seemed to echo Levshin in being unsure of what exactly that identity entailed. What independence created, however, was an opportunity for Kazakhs and Kazakhstanis to decide for themselves what they were. In the years that have followed, music has been one of the most vibrant such spaces for young Kazakhstanis. Scholars Kakim Danabayev and Jowon Park chronologically tracked trends in Kazakhstani popular music post-independence—noting how influences from abroad, beginning with Russian pop and moving toward western genres like Hip-hop, Rock, and Metal, inspired young Kazakh musicians in the first two decades after independence.

Danabayev and Park point out, however, that most popular music produced during this time was still in Russian, and Kazakh music’s popularity was limited mostly to the Kazakh-speaking population. Official efforts promoting “Kazakhization” during those years struggled to change the cultural landscape. Norris recounts a spectacular 2005 example, when the government-sponsored epic film The Nomad was released. The film had unprecedented budget for Kazakhstan—around $30-40 million—and was an attempt to tell the story of national hero Ablai Khan uniting the Kazakh tribes. President Nursultan Nazarbayev called it “a revival of [Kazakhstan’s] historical statehood” (emphasis in the original), meant to introduce Kazakhstan to the world and gain global acknowledgment of their national legitimacy. Music featuring the dombra, Kazakhstan’s national instrument, was prominent throughout. Unfortunately, the international release of The Nomad failed; the film’s international box office was just $3 million, with only $79,000 from the United States.

Kazakhstan has experienced such struggles to build a new national identity partly because of the continued influence of Russia. Russia’s soft power is particularly notable in Kazakhstan, where four million ethnic Russians still live and where Russian-language media—news, entertainment, and otherwise—continues to dominate. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing statements that Kazakhs properly belong “in the so-called greater Russian world” serve as a reminder of the cultural, political, and economic pressures emanating from Russia. Viatcheslav Morozov has pointed out that Kazakhstan’s political elite must continually engage in a careful dance by trying to “establish a national narrative in opposition to Russian and Soviet colonialism… without any major symbolic steps that would draw the attention of the Russian media.” Proposed moves to reduce the use of Russian in schools or in public life have often been blunted in the interest of “stability”, and subverted by geopolitical steps like joining the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

Meanwhile, another reason why Kazakhstan struggled to build its national identity is a deteriorating relationship between social leaders and young people. Danabayev and Park note that Kazakhstani young people are increasingly tired of the “outdated, boring and conservative foundations of both society and [the music] industry as a whole” and describe today’s music scene as “the music of protest.” On September 1, 2015, Kazakhstan was rocked by the appearance of Ninety One, a boy band that sang in Kazakh and performed in a style inspired by Korean boy bands, with brightly dyed hair, makeup, tight clothes, and other features that outraged much of society. The Kazakhstani government was hesitant, to say the least, to support such a group, allowing popular protests to shut down nine of sixteen concerts the group tried to hold in its first year. However, young people kept the group’s songs at number one on music shows and charts for months. In 2016, the group held hundreds of concerts, and a new Kazakh-language genre was born, ‘Q-pop’, with the Q taken from the new Kazakh language romanization of Kazakhstan: Qazaqstan.

As the success of Q-pop extends beyond Kazakh speakers and even beyond the border of Kazakhstan, it is instructive to look at how Korean pop was strongly supported by government intervention in its path to becoming a global phenomenon. Partnerships between public entities like Korea’s Culture Industry Bureau, created in the 1990s, private companies, and Korean institutes abroad have worked in tandem to promote Korea as a brand throughout the world. Success with K-pop came first in Asia, with groups like Shinee, Wonder Girls, and EXO. With the rise of video streaming online and social media, these public-private partnerships found a pathway to spread the popularity of K-pop bands in the West, and now groups like BTS and Twice are some of the biggest names in music. As a result, Korea’s soft power has never been greater, with legions of foreigners showing newfound interest in learning Korean and exploring Korean culture. Such cultural prestige fosters tremendous pride and unity among Korean youth as well, contributing to their own formation of national identity.

Kazakhstan walking a similar path, however, could be derailed if the ruling Amanat Party sees its mission as building prestige for itself, rather than for the country. Lyrics like those from the Ninety One song Ah!Yah!Mah!: “I will destroy your stereotypes, let your brain cross the border” sung from a government stage are more likely to lose their resonance than they are to make the Kazakhstani government more popular. This was seen during a September 9th, 2022 concert featuring Ninety One and other Q-pop bands, which fell under significant criticism when large parts of the event were co-opted by Amanat leaders to deliver political speeches. Yet the spirit of protest in Kazakhstan’s popular music is, if anything, a competitive advantage compared to the mostly apolitical K-pop. Throughout the world, young people united by the internet are straining against out-of-touch sociopolitical institutions. Public-private partnerships presenting them with Kazakh-language music that transcends linguistic and cultural boundaries to speak to their struggles could gain tremendous rewards in terms of building prestige—and subsequently, national identity. It is not for nothing that the Soviets held music to be a defining characteristic of nationhood; relatable and authentic music naturally becomes the voice of a generation. It is up to the Kazakhstani government to help that voice be singing in Kazakh, and to give Kazakhstanis the space to decide for themselves what they are.