Q-Pop Is Back. Is Kazakhstan Ready This Time?

Around 2015, Kazakhstan saw the rise of Q-pop, led by the boy band Ninety One. A decade on, the cultural tension remains: while youth artists enjoy greater visibility, many observers argue that freedom of expression is still shaped by a silent boundary — ‘you can make music, but not stir too much controversy. A little over a decade ago, five young men in earrings and pastel clothes released “Aıyptama!” (“Don’t blame me”) - a slick, catchy track in Kazakh, with a video that looked like it came straight out of Seoul. The group, Ninety One, was born out of a reality TV show modeled on the K-pop system. At the time, Kazakh-language pop had little presence on mainstream radio or TV, where Russian-language and Western hits dominated. Much of the Kazakh-language music most people heard came from weddings and folk performances rather than commercial pop charts. Occidental pop, rock and Russian-language hip hop ruled the charts. So, when Azamat Zenkaev (AZ), Dulat Mukhamedkaliev (Zaq), Daniyar Kulumshin (Bala), Batyrkhan Malikov (Alem), and Azamat Ashmakyn (Ace) debuted as a group, they looked and sounded like nothing the local music scene had ever seen. Their appearance sparked outrage. In Karaganda, a 2016 concert was canceled after protests. “We are against them because they dye their hair and wear earrings!” a demonstrator shouted, captured in the 2021 documentary Men Sen Emes (Sing Your Own Songs) by Katerina Suvorova. “No parent would want their son to look like a woman,” a conservative activist added. Even their producer, Yerbolat Bedelkhan, noted, “They shook up Kazakh show business with their unusual looks.” And yet, their rise was unstoppable. Despite boycotts and online abuse, Ninety One topped national charts. Each video release became an event. Over time, their success helped make gender-fluid aesthetics more visible in Kazakhstan’s pop scene — and made singing in Kazakh fashionable again among young audiences. But their aesthetics stood in sharp contrast to the state-promoted model of Kazakh masculinity. [caption id="attachment_37776" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Ninety One; image: JUZ Entertainment[/caption] Revival and Restriction: The State’s Masculine Ideal In 2017, then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev launched Rukhani Zhangyru – a sweeping state program for “spiritual renewal.” Its goal was to forge a unified Kazakh national identity after decades of Soviet domination, largely by reigniting traditional values. Streets were renamed after historical khans, a National Dombra Day was established, and the country began shifting from Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. But the cultural revival came with a gender script. School textbooks were rewritten, according to a 2021 Rutgers University study, to cast masculinity as a blend of strength, rationality, and emotional restraint. The ideal Kazakh man - the Batyr - was reimagined as a stoic warrior of the steppes. In this context, Ninety One’s aesthetics didn’t fit in. “Many thought Q-pop artists didn’t act like ‘real Kazakhs’,” Merey Otan, a musician and PhD candidate at Nazarbayev University told The Times of Central Asia. “Wearing makeup, earrings, or bright clothes, expressing emotions or sexuality – these all clashed with a...