A rap on Dota 2 called “astral step” has risen to the top of the Spotify weekly chart in the Russian region for two weeks in a row. Sung by shadowraze, who livestreams on Twitch under the username ‘ragedota,’ the Russian song incorporates multiple aspects of Dota 2’s Void Spirit such as his spells. In the past week, the song has been streamed almost a million times on Spotify. Shadowraze has also released other raps in the past with references to Dota 2 that are quite popular in Russia.
Dota 2 themed raps by shadowraze gain a lot of traction on Spotify among the Russian community
Shadowraze's two-minute astral step has been streaming more on Spotify in Russia than any other track in the past two weeks, raking in 972,990 streams in the last week and 969,568 in the week before. Originally released on 29th Oct 2021 on YouTube, the rap has crossed 2.5 million views at the time of writing.
Astral step is not the first Dota themed song from shadowraze. In the Russian region, on Spotify, his song 'shadowfiend' ranks 18th, 'juggernaut' ranks 21st, 'psiblades' ranks 29th, and '1000-7' ranks 34th in the past week.
According to a Reddit user u/_degamus_, shadowraze's raps feature random Dota 2 verses, with a hip-hop focus. “He is writing mostly hip-hop music. The only song with real meaning is a hyperpop song "psiblades". Dude is literally using the fact that psiblades give attack range to show distancing love relationships lol,” he wrote in a comment on the Reddit thread.
There is also another Twitch livestreamer named "quiizzzzmeow" who has composed a number of Russian raps on aspects related to Dota 2, particularly Eastern European personalities. Some of his most popular raps are on Eastern European players like Igor "iLTW" Filatov and teams like NAVI.
Swedish singer Jonas Erik Altberg, popularly known as Basshunter, was one of the first artists to integrate Dota 2 and music. He released a song relevant to Dota back in 2006 when the game was still a mod, which became quite a sensation. Basshunter appeared in a promotional music video featuring the same song from 2006 before Valve x Netflix aired Book 1 of DOTA: Dragon's Blood anime in March 2021.
