About
Biography
Manizha is a Russian singer, born in Tajikistan. When she was 2 years old, Manizha and her family moved to Moscow, where she later studied piano and singing. Meanwhile she graduated from the Faculty of Psychology at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. Since the age of 12, Manizha has been participating in various competitions and festivals.
In 2005, Manizha recorded several songs in both Tajik and Russian. The songs were actively played on radio stations in Tajikistan. At the age of 15, from the beginning of 2007, she began performing under the pseudonym Ru.Kola.In February she recorded her first song – “Prenebregayt”. The song received a lot of airplay. It reached the top of the Russian charts. In 2007, Manizha became a finalist of the All-Russian Pyat’zvozd competition in Sochi. In the spring of 2008, the debut album “Prenebregayt” was released. After this, she left the Ru.kola project. In 2011 she met the soloist Alexei Kosov, she received an offer to sing at a concert of the band Assai. She was supposed to perform one song, but in the end she sang the entire concert. Then Alexey convinced Manizhi’s mother to allow her to go to St. Petersburg in May to record the album “OM”. She also sang in the band Krip de Shi. In the summer of 2012, she recorded an EP with the group. The group performed at the Stereoleto festival in St. Petersburg , in September – at the Red Rocks Tour festival in Ryazan, but then, due to different views on creativity, Manizha left the band. She studied vocals at gospel schools in London and New York. In 2012, Manizha participated in a soundtrack. She also worked with musician Mikhail Mishchenko. The album “Core” was the result of their creativity in 2014.
In March 2018 Manizha joined a project of the French music service Deezer, “Deezer Next” 2018 (a global program created to discover new talent around the world – along with George Smith (UK), Lewis Capaldi (UK) and other independent artists).
As a solo singer, Manizha released two albums: “Manuscript” in 2017 and “ЯIAM” in 2018.
In March 2021, Manizha won the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. Not everybody in Russia appeared to be fan of Manizha’s song “Russian woman”; traditional Russian women claimed they didn’t recognize themselves in the song. Even threaths followed. However, Manizha was successfull and reached the Eurovision final.
