In Chechnya, the rhythm does indeed stop

People partial to a shindig in the Russian republic of Chechnya are about to find their music options will be rather limited. The region is introducing a ban on tunes that don’t conform to the Chechen “sense of rhythm.” In a statement translated by The Guardian, Chechnya’s Culture Ministry announced last week, “From now on all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute,” effectively criminalizing anything the region considers to be too fast or too slow.

The ban requires local artists to rewrite their music to comply with the restrictions by June 1st, or else they won’t be allowed to perform publicly. “Borrowing musical culture from other peoples is inadmissible,” said Chechen Culture Minister Musa Dadayev. “We must bring to the people and to the future of our children the cultural heritage of the Chechen people.”

The new tempo limitations are, amusingly, too fast for Russia’s own national anthem (which sits at 76bpm), while still being fairly slow by popular music standards. The high bpm rave and techno bops enjoyed in Western countries are clearly out, but this ban would even prevent people from listening to fairly somber tracks like Nirvana’s 120bpm hit “Come as You Are” — if the song wasn’t already restricted in the deeply conservative Russian republic.

Chechnya is governed by Russian laws, which already heavily restrict media that contains swearing or that mentions drugs or LGBTQIA themes. The first two especially impact things like rap — which can easily fall between the 80 to 116bpm limit — with Russian President Vladimir Putin having previously called for a crackdown on the genre in 2018.

Chechnya has been repeatedly criticized by foreign governments and human rights organizations, with the republic’s authoritarian leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, having vocally supported “honor killings” against women and sexual minorities. In response to reports in 2017 that concentration camps had been set up by Chechen authorities to torture gay men, Kadyrov claimed that LGBTQ+ individuals “simply do not exist” in the region.