"Hey! Where is everybody?!" shouts Alexei Pavlov into the pitch-black Moscow night. It's two o'clock in the morning, and Pavlov is emerging from the "Master" disco, where his rap group has just performed. The rest of the group has beaten him to the street, where they are anxiously trying to flag down taxis to take them home out of the swirling snow.

Pavlov pauses theatrically on the steps outside the disco. "Where are my people?" he thunders in his bizarre blend of Russian-accented, street-hip homeboy English. He grins at the ensuing silence, cocks his head to one side, and demands again, "Hey! Where are my people?!"

Good question. Or better yet: Who are Alexei Pavlov's people? Russian, rapper, Hare Krishna devotee, rock/jazz drummer, vegetarian: Alexei -- aka "MD&C Pavlov" (formerly MC Pavlov) -- is an exotic and unprecedented blend, one of the colorful and very un-Russian characters that have sprouted in the artistic hothouse that is modern Moscow.

Which is not to say that Pavlov is simply riding the wave of eclecticism sweeping Russia's capital. He is a true original, having found his love for rap, R&B, soul and funk music in the pre-perestroika days, before the surge of hipness that freedom, money, and MTV brought to Moscow. He is the "godfather of Russian rap," a man far ahead of the musical curve in a country where, he says, "People don't understand rhythm; they only know how to clap on the first and third beat.

"But they will learn," he says with a knowing grin. "There's a huge musical void in Russia right now, but we're gonna fill it. We're gonna teach the people."