Maraaya

Maraaya is a Slovenian pop duo founded in 2014 by Marjetka Vovk and Raay. The name is a combination of their names. 

Before music author and producer Raay (real name: Aleš Vovk) and singer Marjetka Vovk (born Jurkovnik) started working as Maraaya, they were members of the bands Turbo Angels and Tangels. In 2014, they released their first single “Lovin’ Me” under the name Maraaya. The song experienced great success on the iTunes charts in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. It was among the twenty best-selling singles in Italy.

It was among the ten best-selling singles in Italy, and was also included on the Polish compilation “Bravo Hits Zima 2015”. It reached  the German DJ’s Dance Top 100 singles chart.

The highest rankings of the song “Lovin’ Me” on the most important official national single charts: on the Slovenian SloTop50, it ranked 13th. It also reached the charts in Italy and Belgium.

They won the 2015 EMA, the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest with their second single “Here for You” and thus qualified for Eurovision, where they reached the final. The song reached the #1 spot in the Slovenian charts. It also became a hit in Austria, Slovakia, Belgium, Sweden and Germany.

In September 2015, they premiered their third single “Living Again” at the Red Cross charity concert in Cankarjev dom. 

At EMA 2016, they presented their fourth single “Nothing Left for Me” as special guests. On May 26, 2017, Maraaya, in collaboration with BQL, performed live on Cankarjeva cesta in Ljubljana, where they premiered their fifth single “It’s Complicated” and at the same time the music video. 

On June 10, 2017, Maraaya performed at the Croatian festival CMC Vodice 2017, where they presented a Croatian version of the single “Sjaj”, which was officially released the day before.

In fall, Maraaya signed a contract with Warner Music, one of the biggest labels in the world. On September 22, their sixth single “Diamond Duck” was released. In the official SloTop50 ranking, they took first place already in the first week of airing. So far, only BQL has managed to do this.

In 2018, they performed again at the CMC Vodice festival, in a duet with Domestikus with the song “Noć (Mi corazón es tuyo)”. They recorded it in Croatian – “Noć (Mi corazón es tuyo)” – and English – “Mi corazón es tuyo” – version (both also have Spanish lyrics). The music video for the Croatian version was uploaded to YouTube on June 8, 2018.

In fall, they started the Maraaya & Jazzilaz project, in which they perform world hits in a swing-jazz guise.

In September 2020, they released their first song in Slovenian, “Obujem nove čevlje”. They shot a video, in which the Croatian dancer and tiktoker Luciano Plazibat performs. The ballad “Drevo” followed in November.

In March 2021, their new single “Dobr’ gre” was released. The song reached the no.1 spot in the Slovenian charts. Marjetka became a judge in Slovenia Ima Talent in the 2021 season. Meanwhile, the duo teamed up with Jan Plestenjak for the song “V naju še verjamem”. It was followe in November by the song “Zdaj pa greš”. Both songs became no. 1 in the trending for music list.

Maraaya teamed up with Kvatropirci for the song “Življenje”, which was released in September 2022. One month later, Maraaya’s own single “Le ob tebi” was released. 

On 6 June 2023, Maraaya released a brand new single, “Nebesa”.