On July 1, blogger and singer Instasamka (Daria Zoteeva) posted a post on Telegram, which was seen as a denunciation of two other performers – Dora (Daria Shikhanova) and Maibi Baby (Victoria Lysyuk).
She accused Dora of having recorded covers of Valentin Strykalo and rapper Face and allegedly included them in her latest album, although these artists are “engaged in the oppression of our country”. And Maeby Baby – in promoting drugs and other propaganda “recognized in our country as extremist movements,” as well as the fact that a few years ago security guards at her concerts allegedly escorted people shouting “Russia!” out of the hall
“And today they perform for Russian people, for our youth, they make albums with destructive content, under the sauce of freedom they push and have always pushed propaganda. What opposition are you? You have no position of your own. They get on Channel One without any obstacles, go on tours to 10+ cities, gather 1000+ people there. <...> And now the question to you girls: what are you forgetting here?” – Instasamka wrote, adding that Dora and Maeby Baby are “destroying our country.”
Maeby Baby responded by posting a video with the caption, “When you spend three years thinking about what kind of denunciation to make up.” The mention of three years is apparently a reference to the disquisition that Maeby Baby recorded on Instasamca in 2022. Instasamka recently published a review of that diss, stating that it was “good kindergarten” but “it’s time to play big like grown-up girls.”
Dora stated that the covers mentioned by Instasamka she posted online back in 2017 when she was in school and using a different alias, they are not included in her albums. “Be sure to check the information before replicating it, and do not believe dubious characters who pursue selfish goals,” the singer advised.
Actor Maxim Vitorgan was outraged by Instasamka’s post: “Where does this rottenness of snitches in the young come from?” The singer also responded to Vitorgan’s ex-wife, journalist Ksenia Sobchak. She recalled that in 2023 Instasamka herself became the object of denunciations: the head of the “League of Safe Internet” Ekaterina Mizulina sought to cancel her concerts, accusing her of promoting drugs and “lewd actions towards children.” Mizulina later said that she held a “working meeting” with Instasamka and that the singer promised to remove all tracks “that contain dangerous information” from the Internet.
“Since Instasamka has started harassing colleagues for old tracks, attracting the public, the public can also look at her work of past years,” Sobchak wrote in telegram. And quoted fragments from some of Instasamka’s tracks, which, according to the journalist, could be regarded as drug propaganda, insulting the feelings of believers, threatening violence against the police and even criticizing the “Russian world”.
From the song “Pimp Lady”:
- Buying myself a yacht, buying myself a chain
- I was dealing crack the other day, and now I’m running a brothel.
From “Holy Bible”
- Build me a temple
- ♪ I’ll clean up your karma ♪
- ♪ Look at the screen ♪
- Save spam, self hard
- I’ll sell it all, I’ll sell it all
- City full of scam
From the song “Jail.”
- Five minutes to go and the cops will be all over us.
- Get your ammo, we gotta cover our ass.
From “Russian World”
- Russian world is a tough sport
- There’s no comfort waiting for you
- Each and every one of us is half dead
- Russian world is a tough sport
- ♪ Make money like Tom Ford ♪
- ♪ Make money like Tom Ford ♪
- Till you’re dead
“I agree with you, my old tracks from 2019-2020 are such a pisser and I wasn’t quite right myself back then,” Instasamka replied. However, the singer continued, her songs now promote values such as “love, success, husband and wife, motivation, self-confidence, loving your body, striving to live an abundant life.” “Today, when I have the meaning of life, a loved one by my side, a long relationship in which we plan to have children, I realize that what these two bitches are doing is fucked up,” Instasamka stated.
Daria Zoteeva, 25, is known as one of Russia’s most scandalous bloggers and rap singers. She gained popularity on instagram, after which she started singing. Both her behavior and her tracks were extremely provocative. Instasamka quarreled with her former assistant, was rude to makeup artists, made up a robbery of her house and an accident in which her boyfriend allegedly got into. In her songs, she emphasized her love of money. Her most popular track is called – “For Money Yes”.
The first denunciation of Instasamka was written before Russia’s full-scale war with Ukraine began. In 2021, the center for the protection of traditional family values “Ivan Chai” complained to the prosecutor’s office of the Sverdlovsk region about the song “Lipsi Ha”, but then the case did not go further than checking. In 2023, when the “Safe Internet League” paid attention to Instasamka, the consequences were more serious – the singer began to cancel concerts. After a meeting with Ekaterina Mizulina Instasamka managed to resume performances, but in the fall of 2024, she found herself on another list of “banned artists” that hit the media.
“One could look at the new round of peer criticism [from Instasamka] as a typical cheeky provocation by the singer in the spirit of ‘look what I can do’. But this prank fits perfectly into the new stage of relations between cultural figures and the state,” said Dozhd journalist Yulia Taratuta, referring to denunciations within the professional environment. According to her sources, Instasamka was hardly fulfilling an order from the authorities when she publicly complained about her colleagues: “They are snitching a little bit themselves. Self-awareness has increased.
