Kasta Essentials

Russian rap veterans Kasta have been rhyming together since the mid-'90s, when core members Vlady, Shim and Hamil bonded over a shared love of spitting bars and dropping beats. Heavily influenced by East Coast hip-hop, their work echoes Beastie Boys, while their ever-expanding and contracting line-up is only rivalled in variation by Wu-Tang Clan. It's precisely this cross-cultural pollination that makes them so intoxicating—their sound is drawn from the US, and their spirited attitude is unmistakably Russian.