Децл (Detsl aka Le Truk)

Detsl, born Kirill Tolmatsky (1983–2019), was a Russian rapper and reggae artist who became the first major teen idol of Russian-language hip-hop. His 2000 debut album Kto? Ty sold over a million copies, an extraordinary figure for domestic rap at the time, and made him a household name across Russia and the former Soviet Union while still a teenager.

His rise was aided by his father Alexander Tolmatsky, a co-owner of a media label and the Muz-TV channel, who used those connections to push Detsl into heavy radio and television rotation. The songs on his early records were largely written by other members of the Bad B. Alliance camp, including Legalize and Sheff, with production from Shooroop and others, while Detsl served as the youthful face and voice of the project. In 2000 he won an MTV Video Music Award for the video «Vecherinka u Detsla», appearing on a bill alongside Eminem and Dr. Dre.

After conflicts with his father around 2004, he began working more independently, moving toward reggae and dancehall influences and adopting the alias Le Truk in later years. His catalogue remains a touchstone of early-2000s Russian pop-rap, remembered both for its commercial breakthrough and for the way it shaped how mainstream Russian media first packaged rap for a mass teenage audience. He died in 2019.