Group KAZKA Net Worth

Biography of the group KAZKA

KAZKA is a young, promising musical group from Kiev, performing in the style of ethno-pop and performing songs in the Ukrainian language. In just a year, an unknown group managed to take the top lines of the charts and get into the top ten of the Ukrainian YouTube segment.

Brief biography of participants

Alexandra Zaritskaya: vocalist

Alexandra was born in Kharkov, in a family of lawyers, as a child she was engaged in dancing. She was brought up on the songs of Zemfira and Bi-2, which her parents listened to, but she didn’t even think about her own vocal career, although she always loved to sing. In high school, she first appeared on the school stage and, terribly embarrassed, sang Shakira’s song. To Sasha’s great surprise, the performance caused a flurry of applause, and from that moment the girl realized that she sang well.

She began to look into karaoke, and already being a student of the Faculty of Law, she began to earn extra money by singing in Kharkov clubs and karaoke bars. The girl also took part in the show “Voice of Ukraine”, but did not reach the final.

Later, Sasha moved to Odessa, where she fell into the circle of local bohemia. The girl hung out at the “kvartirniki”, made friends with artists and musicians, and sang at every opportunity. Friends appreciated her vocal talent and advised her to move to Kiev to try to get on the big stage. In the capital, Zaritskaya met Nikita Budash, who, inspired by her singing and bright charisma, invited the girl to create her own team.

Nikita Budash: musician, arranger

Nikita is a professional sound engineer, graduated from the National Academy of Culture and Arts (NARKKI), lived in a hostel at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra for three years. He collaborated with the Komora recording studio, later founded his own. In addition, in 2011, with Ruslan Kolesnikov, he created the Dead Boys Girlfriend group.

A few years ago, Yuri Nikitin became interested in the work of this group and invited the musicians to record a joint track with Andrei Danilko. True, this idea never came to fruition, but the friendly and creative ties between Nikitin and Budash were preserved. Therefore, as soon as the idea to create his own team was born, Nikita turned to Yuri for help. He became interested in the project and took the newly minted group under the wing of Mamamusic.

Dmitry Mazuryak: multi-instrumentalist

Born in Bukovina and from childhood he was fond of playing traditional Transcarpathian musical instruments. At first he took lessons from a rural musician, then he graduated from a music school, continued his education at the Faculty of Arts of the Kiev Pedagogical University. After moving to the capital, he played in underground passages to earn his living. He collects rare musical instruments, of which there are already more than fifty in his collection.

The fateful meeting with Sasha and Nikita took place in the Grushevsky Museum, where Dima gave a lecture on folk instruments. The guys liked the enthusiastic young musician with burning eyes, and they offered him cooperation. So, in 2018, a third member appeared in the KAZKA group.

The beginning of the creative path

Alexandra and Nikita met at the end of 2016, and already in March of the following year, an audio recording of their debut song “Holy” got on the Internet. At the same time, the name KAZKA was born (this, as you might guess, is a “fairy tale” in translation from Ukrainian), which embodied the hopes and aspirations of novice musicians who believe in their success. The track of an unknown group began to rapidly gain a huge number of likes, which was a complete surprise for the musicians themselves. The song was willingly accepted into rotation by the leading radio stations of the country, and soon a video was shot, thanks to which fans could see their idols. On the wave of success, KAZKA took part in the eighth season of the X-factor contest, but failed to enter the top three finalists, and took only seventh place. But at the end of 2017, the team received the YUNA award in the Breakthrough of the Year nomination.

This failure did not affect the band’s popularity in any way, on the contrary, the guys set to work with renewed vigor and soon released another single – “Diva”, which immediately hit the top lines of iTunes. With this track, the group took part in the qualifying competition for Eurovision 2018, but failed.

Rise in popularity

By the beginning of 2018, it became clear to everyone that a new star called KAZKA shone in the sky of Ukrainian show business. According to the results of the past year, the group became the winner of many prestigious music awards in the Discovery of the Year and Breakthrough of the Year nominations. Encouraged by such success, the musicians started recording their debut album “KARMA”, which included both already known hits and new songs. The guys even recorded a cover of Kuzma Skryabin’s hit “Movchati”, considering it consonant with the overall concept of the album.

The live premiere took place on April 1 in Kiev, and at the beginning of summer the collection was posted on the Internet, first in full, and then each song separately. This ingenious marketing ploy immediately bore fruit, and the track “Crying”, on which the musicians themselves did not make big bets, unexpectedly collected a record number of likes. A video was shot right there, thanks to which the group got into the top ten of Ukrainian YouTube. Prior to this, no Ukrainian-speaking group had achieved such success. In support of the album, a tour around the cities of Ukraine was organized, which was a great success.

The secret of the success of the KAZKA group

The members of the group explain their unexpected rise to the top of the musical Olympus by a successful combination of folk style and elements of electronic music, which maximizes the boundaries of their potential audience.

In addition, over the past few years in Ukraine, an increased interest in the national language and folk traditions has been actively cultivated, which also could not but affect the group’s popularity.

It is also impossible to discount many years of experience and professional intuition of the producer of the group, Yuri Nikitin, who gave a start to the creative life of Irina Bilyk, Verka Serduchka, the Nikita and NeAngely groups.

Scandals

After the release of the video for the song “Diva”, the band members reported a massive cheating of dislikes under the video. The incident was repeated after the release of the album “KARMA”. There were literally thousands of dislikes. To whom KAZKA crossed the road, even the musicians themselves were perplexed.

Discography

KAZKA group now

KAZKA continues to conquer new heights. At the beginning of November 2018, a joyful post appeared on the group’s Instagram – the clip “Crying” scored 32 million views, and the composition itself took first place in the Yandex Music chart. The team is very popular among Russian listeners – even the tense foreign political situation does not interfere with the unifying force of their work!

The musicians took part in the national selection for Eurovision 2019 and took third place. The first place went to the singer Maruv, but she refused – the girl was required to voice political slogans at the competition and exclude Russia from the tour. Then the choice fell on the Freedom-Jazz group, which also answered in the negative. After this, the guys from Kazka decided that it would be better for them to refuse. “Our mission is to unite people with our music, not to sow discord,” they decided.