Artists - Biography and discography, all albums and songs

Mikhail Galustyan (officially Nshan Sergeyevich Galustyan; born October 25, 1979, in Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russian SFSR, USSR) is a Russian comedian, actor, television host, producer and performer of Armenian descent. He became widely known as a member and captain of the KVN team «Utomlyonnye Solntsem», which won the KVN Premier League championship in 2003. He later played Ravshan, Alexander Rodionovich Borodach, Zhorik Vartanov and numerous other characters in the sketch comedy series «Nasha Russia», appeared in films and television series, voiced Po in the Russian-language versions of «Kung Fu Panda», and in 2019 launched the musical project Super Zhorik. In 2023, Galustyan obtained Armenian citizenship. His best-known screen projects include…

ALIGASH (real name — Song Qiang; previously performed as DJ JOE) is a Chinese DJ and music producer working primarily in trance and uplifting trance. His professional career spans around three decades. He has worked under the name ALIGASH since 2019, when he began focusing on trance music. His releases have appeared on Future Sound of Egypt (FSOE), Pure Trance NEON, AROS Music and Amon Vision. His key works include «Spring And Autumn», «Belief», «Moon Bay At Sunset», «Indelible Memory», «Quicksand», «Starshine», «Half a Dream», «Clouds' Hometown» and «Evening Primrose». Apple Music lists Dalian, Liaoning Province, as the artist’s place of origin. Career before ALIGASH…

Slava KPSS (real name — Vyacheslav Valeryevich Mashnov; born May 9, 1990, Khabarovsk, Russia) is a Russian rapper, poet, battle MC and streamer, also known under the aliases Gnoyny, Sonya Marmeladova, Valentin Dyadka, Buter Brodsky, Vorovskaya Lapa and a number of other stage names. He is one of the most prominent figures of Russian-language battle rap of the 2010s and a member of the «Антихайп» collective. Mashnov became widely known after defeating Oxxxymiron in a joint Versus Battle and #SlovoSPB event in August 2017. Long before that, he had already built an extensive underground discography, participated in the group «Ежемесячные», won the first season of Saint Petersburg’s Slovo league and experimented with grime, punk, trap, spoken word and…

Megadeth is an American thrash metal band founded by Dave Mustaine in Los Angeles in 1983 after his departure from Metallica. Along with Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, the band is commonly regarded as part of the so-called “Big Four” of American thrash metal. Megadeth developed one of the most technically complex forms of the genre: its music is built around Mustaine’s fast and rhythmically dense guitar playing, the interaction of two lead guitars, prominent bass parts, and frequent changes in tempo and structure. The band’s lyrics regularly address war, politics, religion, nuclear threats, social instability and human self-destruction. Over the course of its career, Megadeth released 17 studio albums, sold around 50 million records worldwide, received 13 Grammy…

DJ White Shadow, also known as DJWS (real name — Paul Edward Blair; born September 20, 1975, Youngstown, Ohio, USA) is an American music producer, songwriter and DJ. He is best known for his long-running collaboration with Lady Gaga: Blair contributed to nine tracks on the album Born This Way, became one of the key producers of ARTPOP, and later worked on six songs for the film A Star Is Born. In 2020, as one of the soundtrack producers, he received a Grammy for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. Some reference sources still list 1978 as DJ White Shadow’s year of birth. However, Astro-Databank states that it obtained information from Blair’s birth certificate, which records the date as September 20, 1975. DJWS’s career extends far beyond his work with…

Prince (full name — Prince Rogers Nelson; June 7, 1958, Minneapolis, Minnesota — April 21, 2016, Chanhassen, Minnesota) was an American singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and actor, and one of the most influential musicians in popular culture from the second half of the 20th century into the early 21st century. His work cannot be reduced to a single genre: Prince freely combined funk, R&B, soul, rock, pop, jazz, psychedelia, electronic music, new wave and gospel, often playing most of the instrumental parts himself and maintaining complete control over the recording process. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame describes him as an artist who changed the understanding of what a songwriter and performer could do through his fusion of numerous genres…

Drake (full name — Aubrey Drake Graham; born October 24, 1986, in Toronto, Canada) is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, producer and actor, and one of the most commercially successful figures in 21st-century popular music. He made the fluid transition between rap and melodic R&B one of the foundations of his style and significantly influenced the way these forms are combined in contemporary popular music. The Recording Academy has described his career as one of those that noticeably changed the development of rap in the 21st century. Among Drake’s best-known songs are Best I Ever Had, Forever, Over, Find Your Love, Headlines, Marvins Room, Take Care, The Motto, Started from the Bottom, Hold On, We're Going Home, Hotline Bling, One Dance, Controlla, Passionfruit,…

Oliver Tree was the stage name of American singer, songwriter, producer, director, and visual artist Oliver Tree Nickell (June 29, 1993 — June 14, 2026). He combined alternative rock, pop, hip-hop, and electronic music with comedy, absurdist video art, and deliberately exaggerated stage personas. Oliver Tree became widely known through songs such as Alien Boy, Hurt, Life Goes On, Cowboys Don't Cry, and Miss You, but his creative story began much earlier — with experimental electronic music under the name Tree, independently recording and editing videos, and a fascination with skate and scooter culture. What made Oliver Tree distinctive was that his music and visual identity almost never existed separately. His deliberately ridiculous bowl haircut, oversized jackets and jeans,…

Pharrell Williams is an American producer, songwriter, singer, rapper, and designer, and one of the defining figures in popular music at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. His career has developed along several parallel paths: as one half of the production duo The Neptunes alongside Chad Hugo, as a member of the experimental group N.E.R.D., as a solo artist, and as a songwriter and producer for other performers and film projects. His studio work has encompassed hip-hop, R&B, funk, pop, and electronic music, while The Neptunes' distinctive minimalist production style became one of the most recognizable sonic aesthetics of the early 2000s. Pharrell was born on April 5, 1973, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He became involved in music while still at school, playing drums and meeting…

Underworld is a British electronic project led by Karl Hyde (Karl Hyde; born May 10, 1957, Worcester, England) and Rick Smith (Rick Smith; born May 25, 1959, Ammanford, Wales). Their creative partnership began in the late 1970s, long before the techno-oriented version of Underworld emerged. Over several decades, Hyde and Smith moved through new wave, synth-pop and funk-rock before completely rebuilding the project around club-oriented electronic music in the early 1990s together with DJ Darren Emerson. Among Underworld's best-known works are Rez, Cowgirl, Dark & Long, Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You, Born Slippy .NUXX, Pearl's Girl, Jumbo, Push Upstairs, King of Snake, Two Months Off, Beautiful Burnout, Always Loved a Film, Scribble, I Exhale, Denver Luna and Techno Shinkansen. The…

Zhanna Aguzarova (full name — Zhanna Khasanovna Aguzarova; born July 7, 1962) is a Soviet and Russian singer, songwriter and former vocalist of the band Bravo, and one of the most distinctive performers in Russian rock and pop music. Her name is primarily associated with the songs «Жёлтые ботинки», «Старый отель», «Кошки», «Синеглазый мальчик», «Ленинградский рок-н-ролл», «Будь со мной», «Мне хорошо рядом с тобой», «Звезда», «Марина», «Не упрекай» and «Королева Сансета». Aguzarova's story spans the Moscow rock-and-roll underground of the early 1980s, Bravo's nationwide popularity, independent songwriting, several years in the United States and her…

DJ Matrix (real name — Matteo Schiavo; born June 16, 1987, Schio, Province of Vicenza, Italy) is an Italian DJ, music producer, songwriter and performer whose career is primarily associated with Italian dance music, Italodance and contemporary electronic pop. He began making electronic music as a teenager, first gained recognition through Tu vivi nell'aria and La tipica ragazza italiana, and later consolidated his success with Voglio tornare negli Anni 90, the long-running Musica da giostra series and numerous collaborations with Italian artists. Unlike many European electronic producers of his generation, Matrix did not build his career primarily around the international festival circuit. His music is closely tied to Italian popular culture: clubs and summer resorts, television,…

MORTEN (real name — Morten Breum; born May 26, 1982, Aarhus, Denmark) is a Danish DJ and music producer. He first gained recognition in his home country in the late 2000s, while the international stage of his career is primarily associated with his long-running collaboration with David Guetta and the development of the Future Rave concept. By the time of his global breakthrough, MORTEN already had more than a decade of professional experience, a studio album and major hits in Denmark. His path took him from Scandinavian club music and electro house through festival EDM to a darker sound combining progressive house, trance, techno and music designed for large festival stages. Aarhus and the beginning of his career Morten Breum grew up in Aarhus. His interest in DJing began in his…

DJ Melloffon (real name — Yuriy Melofon; also performed under the name MLFN) was a Ukrainian DJ, music producer and electronic music artist. His work was primarily associated with house and dance-pop. Melloffon released his own tracks, created club versions and remixes for Ukrainian artists, and collaborated with Moon Records. Among the musician’s most notable works are Forget, «Рай» with Katia Rudelman, First Be a Woman, «На краю земли», «Осколки», The Sun, the album One Love and the track «Героям Слава!». Remixes for Lavika and the band «Скрябін» became an important part of his career. DJ Melloffon: early releases and remixes Relatively little reliable information has survived about the early years of Yuriy…

Mama Aoki is the stage name of Chizuru Kobayashi, the mother of American DJ and producer Steve Aoki. She appeared in music catalogues as a featured performer on Steve Aoki & Vini Vici — Moshi Moshi, released in 2018 on Dim Mak Records. Her voice, delivering short Japanese phrases, became one of the track’s central elements. Mama Aoki should not be considered a conventional solo music project with an extensive discography or long-running performing career. Her involvement in electronic music is primarily connected with a single recording, but Moshi Moshi received a full international release, appeared on Steve Aoki’s 5OKI EP and gave Chizuru her own artist profile on major streaming services. Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer and Beatport all list Mama Aoki among the…

Francis Grasso (25 March 1948, Brooklyn, New York — 20 March 2001, New York) was an American DJ and one of the key pioneers of modern club DJing. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he helped transform the act of playing records from a sequence of separate songs into a continuous musical performance: he developed beatmatching, used headphone cueing, brought slip-cueing techniques from radio practice into the club environment, and structured long sets as carefully controlled journeys across the dancefloor. Grasso worked at New York clubs including Salvation II, Tarots, Sanctuary and The Haven before disco had fully emerged as a distinct musical genre. His influence is not associated with his own hit singles or studio albums, but with fundamental principles of DJ performance that…

DAVA (real name — David Ashotovich Manukyan; born 16 March 1993 in Novosibirsk) — is a Russian singer, rapper, songwriter, producer, television host and video blogger. Manukyan’s professional path is unusual in that music became only the third major field of his career after competitive ballroom dancing and social media. After beginning to release his own songs in 2018, DAVA progressed within just a few years from short internet videos to a solo album, major musical collaborations and an independent pop career. His discography combines pop music, hip-hop, melodic rap, dance electronic music and romantic urban lyrics. Among DAVA’s best-known works are “XXX”, “Kislorod”, “Tantsuy kak pchela”, “Budu pyanym”,…

Nikolay Baskov (full name — Nikolay Viktorovich Baskov; born 15 October 1976) is a Russian opera and pop singer, tenor, television presenter and educator, and a People’s Artist of the Russian Federation. His career developed simultaneously in two directions: academic vocal performance and mainstream pop music. In the late 1990s, Baskov performed on the opera stage and made his debut at the Bolshoi Theatre, while in the early 2000s he gained widespread popularity with the songs «Памяти Карузо», «Шарманка», «Натуральный блондин» and later pop hits. This combination of classical vocal training and pop repertoire became the foundation of his stage image and allowed him to work within the classical crossover format. Childhood and early music…

David Vendetta (real name David Paparusso) is a French DJ, music producer and remixer, and one of the notable figures of European house music in the 2000s. He is best known for tracks such as Love to Love You Baby, Unidos Para La Música, Break 4 Love, Bleeding Heart and Hold That Sucker Down, as well as the albums Rendez-Vous and Vendetta. His music combines a classic house foundation with electro house, tribal rhythms, prominent vocal performances and Mediterranean influences. Early years and path into music David Paparusso was born in the French town of Longwy, located in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department. Before turning to music professionally, he worked in the pharmaceutical field, but by the early 2000s he had decided to focus entirely on DJing and producing electronic…

Irakli (full name — Irakli Pirtskhalava; born 13 September 1977 in Moscow) is a singer, songwriter, composer and radio host of Georgian origin, and one of the notable artists of the Russian pop scene of the 2000s. He gained widespread recognition after taking part in the second season of the television music project «Фабрика звёзд». His best-known songs include «Вова-чума», «Лондон-Париж», «Время», «Капли абсента», «Я с тобой», «Сны», «Нелюбовь» and «Luna». Childhood, music and football Irakli Pirtskhalava was born on 13 September 1977 in Moscow. He was raised by his mother Nana, an engineer by profession. As a child, Irakli was involved in both music and sport: he studied…