Russian rapper Timur Yusunov, better known by his stage name Timati, isn’t a great poet judging by songs like ‘Welcome to Saint Tropez’ and ‘Dirty Whoren’. He is also not very gifted in cinematography, as witnessed by his videos with only teeming beautiful people’s bodies surrounded by expressions of capitalist bad taste, such as expensive watches, large cars and gaudy designer clothes.
What he will soon be: the manager of the nearly two hundred Starbucks stores in Russia. The American coffee chain, which has been active in Russia for 15 years, was one of the first multinationals to stop all activities there in March after the Russians invaded Ukraine. Then Starbucks had to find a Russian buyer.
More companies took that decision. The first fifteen restaurants of ‘Vkusno & totsjka’ opened their doors in mid-June. The hamburger chain was called McDonald’s before the invasion and has since been taken over by Aleksandr Govor, a Siberian oil magnate. Other multinationals, such as Pizza Hut, Michelin and Carlsberg, are still looking for Russian buyers from local shops and factories.
Clothes and burgers
For Starbucks, that search is now over, Timati reported via Instagram this weekend. That was not a huge surprise, because the Russian rapper, born in 1983, has been stirring the business world for some time. His clothing brand Black Star Wear is doing well, as is his hamburger chain Black Star Burger, which now has dozens of restaurants in Russia as well as Azerbaijan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
What may aid him in that success is his very warm relationship with the ruling power in Russia. For years it has been relatively difficult for the Kremlin to get a grip on the Russian rap world, which is very popular among young people. For example, well-known rappers such as FACE, Oxxxymiron and Morgenshtern, in 2021 still the most listened artist on the Russian version of Spotify, openly spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine, which has meanwhile earned FACE a qualification ‘foreign agent’, which meant he had to leave Russia. flee.
However, Timati takes a diametrically different approach. In March, he was the only rapper to perform in front of 200,000 Russians at the festival commemorating the annexation of Crimea, and he has also been vocally pro-Putin in his lyrics for years. He sang the praises of the Russian leader in his 2015 song “My best friend is President Putin”, in which he described him as a “great superhero” that “you, me, the whole country are behind.”
Miss Russia
Timati became famous in 2004 after participating in the Russian talent show Fabrika Zvezd (Star Factory), and in the years that followed he remained always around the center of attention, first thanks to his remarkable metamorphosis from romantic song singer to gangster rapper, later especially through his relationships with former Miss Russia contestants, who were then exchanged for Miss Russia contestants from slightly more recent years.
In 2019, at a time when criticism of the Kremlin was slightly less severely punished and the squares and streets were still regularly filled with large-scale protests, his song ‘Moscow’ still got the dubious honor of being the most disapproved Russian song ever on YouTube. become. It came out just before the municipal elections, and Timati rapped, among other things: ‘I don’t go to protests and I don’t talk nonsense’. At one point, against 85,000 thumbs up, there were 1.48 million thumbs down, after which he decided to take the song offline.
Timati takes over the Starbucks branches with business partner Anton Pinski, who also operates dozens of restaurants in Russia. They do not want to change much about the concept of the coffee chain for the time being. They do plan to introduce a new name and logo.
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