Massa is putting Central Asia on the Map, One Video at a time

We speak with Uzbek rapper, producer, and entrepreneur Massa at his store in Tashkent about blending Eastern and Western sounds, building a career from scratch in a country with no real music industry to speak of, and why rap and business have always gone hand in hand for him.

Active in the Uzbek music scene since 2018, Massa has built a name through hard-hitting rap tracks, massive YouTube views, and a constant stream of collaborations with artists across the region. He's proving that music in the Uzbek language can travel just as far as anything rapped in Russian. He slept on the floor while he built his first business. He saved every dollar he made and poured it straight back into his music. For Massa, the creative and entrepreneurial worlds have always been closely connected.

We spoke with him about his journey into music, his global ambitions, and what drives his work both inside and outside the studio.

@massa_38

ANOMIE: Hi Massa! To start, how would you introduce yourself and your music to someone hearing it for the first time?

Massa: Hi there. Firstly, I'm a producer, a businessman. After that, I'm a musician, I do it because I really love it. In our old regime, rap and rock were banned. Not officially, but banned. Our young generation saw gangster rap and started imitating it, mass fights broke out. The government saw that and banned it. Not officially, but they banned it. Young people were fighting each other over it.

ANOMIE: How did the scene change once things started opening back up?

Massa: In 2018, I was the first to start everything up again. Back when there were labels in the 2000s, they'd put up the money, get you rotation on TV, everywhere. But once that money dried up, nobody was creating anything. If someone made music, it was just for fun, write it, send it to friends, no real promotion, no music videos, no career.

ANOMIE: So how did you go about building a career when that whole system was gone?

Massa: I was young. I never really planned to be a rapper as a job, I just loved it, and I studied it. I understood there was no money in it. So I told myself: if I want to do this, I have to do it myself. I learned everything. The beat-making, editing, shooting music videos, shooting films, and color grading. Now I can do the whole process from zero to a hundred: write the beat, write the song, edit it, master it, shoot the video myself, color grade it, do the promo, handle the management. Everything.

ANOMIE: While all this was happening in Uzbekistan, you actually spent time in the US too, right?

Massa: Yeah,  I was in the US around 2013–14 as a cultural exchange student. I spent time in New Jersey, New York, LA, Kansas. It was hard to stay connected with people back home while I was out there. A friend said, "let's do a trucking business," so we worked on that together, and then I came back to Uzbekistan. I could've stayed in the US, but I wanted to do something big for my country, for my culture.

ANOMIE: What happened with the trucking business once you were back?

Massa: My friend and I couldn't run the business properly because we couldn't stay connected across the distance. Since I understood the technology, I found a way to reach the drivers directly, we could just call them. That's how I ended up running the first small call center in Uzbekistan, dispatching for clients in the US. I hired smart guys from the university and we worked from Uzbekistan for the American market.

ANOMIE: Was that where your first real money came from?

Massa: That was my first real money. I saved it, saved it, saved it, still sleeping on the floor. I'm really from the bottom, I didn't have anything. Once I had that first real money, I opened my shop in 2016. Once I saw the money coming in from that, I started investing in my music career.

My first song came out in August 2018. Since then I've released 54 music videos, and I don't put out a song without a video to go with it. Right now it's at song 54. 

ANOMIE: How were you received when you first started dropping music?

Massa: I treated it like discipline. When I started, everybody laughed. The music industry here was basically dead, people said "who raps here? It's nothing." They told me, "you can speak Russian, just do it in Russian." I said no, I want to make the Uzbek language something to be proud of again.

That first music video, everybody laughed. I didn't stop. At first they said I just looked like this rapper or that one, copying someone else's style. Then I built my own identity, and people saw I wasn't playing around, that I was serious.

ANOMIE: Did things get any easier for you as you kept going?

Massa: After my fourth or fifth song, once I started dropping music videos regularly, it actually got cheaper for me. I bought my own cameras, built my own studio, did everything myself. Production costs went down.

ANOMIE: How did the YouTube side of things take off?

Massa: I started a YouTube channel from zero. I remember hitting my first 10,000 views and thinking, "thank you, guys." Then it exploded. People were proud, because a lot of our audience still listened to Russian rap, we didn't have good local music. When something good came out of Uzbekistan, people said "listen, this is Uzbek," and they showed it around. Once people saw it was actually possible to become a rapper here, everyone got motivated.

A lot of people didn't realize it wasn't my parents' money behind it, I really started from the bottom. I was 25 when I began, which is old for this industry, but I never imagined stopping. A lot of our youth saw that and got motivated too. I try to always help new rappers, I feature everybody. If someone isn't even a rapper, no problem, I'm a producer, I'll teach them how, I'll do everything for them.

ANOMIE: As you mentioned, you've been contributing to the music scene since 2018. What inspired you to get into it when there was no music scene at all?

Massa: Because I love to rap and write beats. My little brother and I did it when I was young. But I understood that I didn't want to put out something high-quality looking with weak content underneath, like a bad voice or an unmastered beat. I told myself I'd only drop my first song or video once I was actually ready, so people could see the growth.

I think if you have no talent but you work hard and hustle, you'll end up more successful than someone who has talent but doesn't put in the work. I don't think I'm especially "god-given," I just put in the work. I'm like a machine. I'm never scared to try something, because even in the US I was a cleaner, a mover. Respect the hustle.

ANOMIE: Who was your first inspiration?

Massa: 50 Cent. My father showed me MTV when I was young. He sounds good, but honestly what motivated me more was how he dressed, how he carried himself, his physical presence. Maybe Tupac too. And outside music, LeBron James, his lifestyle, how much he loves what he does.

I like Kendrick, he's a good rapper, but he doesn't motivate me the same way. I think a great person should be great in every area, physically and mentally. 50 Cent had that. All my songs are about money, coming from the bottom, the gym, cars, the lifestyle. Not really about love.

I actually saw him in New York in 2014, they were shooting something in Central Park and needed a crowd, so I went. It was good.

ANOMIE: Before your music took off, you were already working on entrepreneurial projects like the All Or Nothing shop here in Tashkent, which started in 2016. How did fashion and business become part of your story alongside music?

Massa: I was hustling since school, doing it online. I just liked dressing well, and there was nothing in Uzbekistan that fit my taste, so I started ordering pieces. People kept asking where I got them, and I said, "I can bring you one if you want, it costs this much," and they'd say "yeah, let's do it." That's how the business started.

ANOMIE: Do you see music and entrepreneurship as connected worlds for you, or do they satisfy completely different sides of your personality?

Massa: They're connected. My first hit had a line about it: "Before I couldn't afford shoes to walk in, now I have my own store." My raps are basically a true story of my hustle, and I think that's helped the culture too. We can't really monetize music here in Uzbekistan because the laws don't support it, but I never let myself be negative about it. I just said, okay, I can't make money from music, I'll make it from clothing instead. Just another hustle.

ANOMIE: Your sound blends influences from both Eastern and Western music traditions. Was that intentional from the beginning, or did it develop naturally?

Massa: It developed naturally. I lived in the US twice, the second time in Hollywood. I was always dressed well, so it was easy to connect with the local guys, producers, and gym friends. I got to see that culture up close and how it worked.

My music is basically my life. People ask why I always rap about myself, because it's a true story. I'm always telling what it was like before, and what it's like now that things have changed.

ANOMIE: You've released a lot of music since 2018, and some of your songs have gained huge numbers of views on YouTube.

Massa: Usually in our country, national-style songs get huge numbers, 300 million views, but the fan base is narrow, kids up to maybe 30, 32. That's the ceiling, because my songs are usually aimed at guys. It's a niche audience. Once you appeal to both girls and guys, you get more reach. When I started making club bangers, I picked up a lot more female listeners.

ANOMIE: And you also collaborated with women artists.

Massa: Yes, as a producer, I saw the potential in it. I can shape any artist's style. I taught them how to do it. I've done a lot of collaborations with bloggers too, because they wanted to sing.

ANOMIE: Was there a moment where you felt like things really started to take off?

Massa: Hitting a million views for the first time was huge. It motivated a lot of people, because I built my YouTube channel with no label, completely on my own, while other singers here were putting their songs on a label's channel and getting lost in it. When they saw my channel with all my own subscribers, that hit differently.

I think that moment was maybe two, three years ago. Financially it's still nothing, I get about $70 per million views, which is close to nothing, and I have close to half a billion views total. But I'm okay with that. I do it for the culture, for the love of the game.

ANOMIE: One track that stood out was "Welcome to Dubai," which you even shot the video for in Dubai.

Massa: My good friend lives in Dubai, he's a blogger. I'm the most-featured artist in Uzbekistan, and he told me, "I'll give you everything, cars, just come here." I have seven songs shot only in Dubai.

I had to think like a marketer, keywords matter. I figured, if I call the song "Welcome to Dubai," I'll get the first result whenever people search for it. After that we dropped "Boss," then "Prince," then "VIP." All targeted. My fans living in Dubai kept asking DJs to play "Dumba" in the clubs. It means a certain body part in Uzbek slang. I made the song, the beat was really nice, the vibe was good. It started as a joke, but it came out sounding professional. It became a hit.

Girls all over Dubai were asking DJs to play it. One DJ messaged me, "who are you?" He liked it, we became friends, and I put him in the music video. He said he has a group of about 50 DJs in Dubai, and because he was in the video, they all started promoting it, soon whole clubs across Dubai were playing an Uzbek song. It just blew up.

ANOMIE: What was it like filming in the UAE?

Massa: When we shot "Welcome to Dubai," I didn't know much about the rules there, Dubai can be pretty strict. My brother said "let's just shoot it," and I think we got lucky. We flew drones over the Marina. We closed off half of Sheikh Zayed Road, brought four cars, and just started rapping, bro.

When I got back, friends were calling me asking, "how did you pull this off? Nobody gives us permission for that." And I was like, "wait, you’re supposed to get permission?" My brother just isn't scared of anything.

ANOMIE: Uzbekistan is quite traditional and conservative. How was it releasing the first Western-influenced rap videos here? Did you get backlash?

Massa: Of course. First, because of my tattoos, we're a Muslim country, 93 percent Muslim, and people said tattoos are haram, bad. A lot of people won't listen to my music because of that. Second, because of the girls in my videos, I tell people, I don't want to only be shown sitting around with guys. Girls are part of my lifestyle. We'd have girls chilling in the pool with us in a video, and that used to shock people. Even people who liked the music didn't always like my style.

ANOMIE: Did that bother you?

Massa: If something bothers me, I never let it stop me. The backlash was hard at first. But over time, once people understand you don't care what they think, they start to like your style instead.

I'm not promoting anything actually bad, I don't drink, I don't do drugs. My songs are about motivation, about getting money. The tattoos are fine by me, for me they represent my goals: my cars, LeBron, my dreams. There's Uzbek lyrics in there too. "RR" refers to a car I rap about, the Rolex references are just because I like watches.

ANOMIE: How important are collaborations to you?

Massa: Sometimes it gets boring doing everything alone. If you listen to my music, there's a lot of range, deep house, '90s tempo, everything. Whatever I feel, I write. One song went viral on TikTok, around 80,000 reels, in Poland and across Europe. It's called "Ko'cha She'riyati." It hit five years after release, spread across Europe, and I got real money from it, I have millions of streams there and get paid as a writer on it.

I've handled everything myself, like running my own label, since I'm an independent artist, registering my music everywhere around the world on my own, doing the research myself. Now I teach the younger generation how to do the same thing.

I want Uzbek rap to get big. Kazakh rappers have no real limits, they can rap about anything. In my songs, there's no cursing at all. Kazakhs already have proper monetization, they have everything set up.

ANOMIE: Why is it so much easier there?

Massa: It's more liberal, and there's a lot of creative people pushing for something new there. I think I'm about the maximum you can get out of a closed-off music industry like ours.

ANOMIE: The Uzbek rap scene seems to be growing rapidly right now. From your perspective, how has it changed since you first started?

Massa: It's growing a lot. A lot of big artists have come to me. My friend and I started a label together, called Harmoney Music Group. We have a lot of artists on it now. 

ANOMIE: Do you think it's easier to get international recognition for rapping in Russian?

Massa: Definitely. Kazakh rappers who rap in Russian are popular because more people understand it. I know some Uzbek guys repping in the US who've become more popular than local artists here just because they rap in English.

ANOMIE: International appeal, but you lose part of the culture that way.

Massa: Every culture has its big breakout artist, look at Bollywood actors, they're worldwide famous. It's possible. It just takes hard work and luck.

A lot of artists get motivated watching me, but after a year or two they see there's still no real money in it, and reality hits, they go back to their old jobs. Famous rappers tell me "there's no money in this," and I tell them, there was never any money in this. When I put in 150,000, that was my entire life savings. I was still sleeping on the floor until I was 30. I just kept reinvesting, pure passion.

I still can't go on TV with my tattoos showing, I have to cover them. If I didn't have tattoos, if I didn't have girls in my videos, I'd probably get paid a lot more. But I chose my own way.

ANOMIE: You've described yourself not just as a rapper, but as a poet, producer, and composer. Which of those roles do you feel most connected to creatively?

Massa: All of it. Whatever I do, I do it 100 percent. I love every part of the process, it matters to me to be involved in every step. I even teach the guys who shoot my music videos.

ANOMIE: What's your typical creative process?

Massa: First, whatever I'm feeling at the moment. I pick the style, then the BPM. Then I imagine what I'm going to shoot for it, if I say "white Rolls-Royce" in the song, it needs to be in the video. If I can visualize it, I can make it happen.

Sometimes I get writer's block, one verse took three weeks once. But if you don't stop, you finish. I'm an artist with no demos, I just finish the song and put it out. No demo stage.

ANOMIE: What motivates you to keep pushing?

Massa: I just enjoy it. This is my dream job, I have pure love for it. It's like going to the gym, I enjoy the process, it makes me happy regardless of the views. Every business has its highs and lows. My record year was 14 music videos.

I've realized that in this era, visuals matter more than a full album, it's better to drop 12 songs with 12 music videos than one album.

ANOMIE: If someone outside Uzbekistan wanted to understand the local rap scene, which artists would you tell them to check out?

Massa: ASL Wayne. He's a Khorezm rapper with a different dialect. His songs have a lot of views, and he's picked up a fan base outside Uzbekistan because his dialect is easier for other cultures to understand.

ANOMIE: Finally, if we fast-forward five years, what would success look like for you?

Massa: Passive income from my whole music catalog. I'm waiting on real monetization here. Royalties, that would be a good thing.

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