Mad Heads XL (previously known as Mad Heads) is a Ukrainian rockabilly and ska group from Kyiv. The band has reached near-legendary status after four studio albums, constant touring, and frequent television appearances. Mad Heads is known internationally, as well, as the most prominent rockabilly band hailing from Eastern Europe. Mad Heads’ debut album, Psycholula, […]

ManSound (МенСаунд) is a Ukrainian vocal sextet from Kyiv. They have taken part in numerous jazz festivals around the world, including the prestigious Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in the United States. In 2001 they were named “Best Vocal Group” by the All-American Entertainment Awards and won first prize at Vokal Total’s international a cappella competition. […]

Zlata Ognevich (Злата Огнєвіч; real name Inna Leonidivna Bordyug, Інна Леонідівна Бордюг) is a Ukrainian pop singer and political activist. She sings mainly in Ukrainian, though sometimes also in Russian and English. Ognevich was born in Murmansk, Russia, to Serbian and Italian parents, but they moved to Sudak, a city in Crimea, when she was […]

Lyuk (Люк; translates to “manhole” in Russian, but the members said they just liked how it sounded) was a Ukrainian rock and rock-adjacent band that broke up in 2011. They’re also affiliated with the genres of punk, acid jazz, lounge, funk, hip-hop, and a bunch of others—the band members themselves have had a hard time defining exactly […]

Jamala was born in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, where her ancestors were sent to from Crimea in one of Joseph Stalin’s bloody ethnic deportations. Her father, an ethnic Crimean Tatar, was a choir master. Her mother, an Armenian whose roots trace back to the now-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, was a pianist. Jamala’s musical education thus started from […]