Zemfira
Encyclopedia
Zemfira, officially Zemfira Talgatovna Ramazanova ; born 26 August 1976 in Ufa
, Bashkortostan
) is a Russia
n rock artist of Bashkir
descent. She has been performing since 1998 and has been immensely popular in Russia and other former Soviet republics
.
, Nazareth
and Queen
, learning to play the guitar. In the 7th grade, Zemfira split her time between music and basketball, becoming the captain of the Russian Girls’ Junior Basketball Team by 1990. She began to lose interest in classical music, preferring instead to hang out with friends in the streets of Ufa
and covering songs by Russian rock groups such as Kino, Nautilus Pompilius
and Aquarium
(who reached the peak of their popularity in the early 1990s).
At the urging of her mother, Zemfira continued with piano studies and graduated music school with honors. In her last year of high school, basketball competed with school work, and the singer abandoned the sport in favour of music. She took the entrance exams for the Ufa College of Fine Arts (Уфимское училище искусств) on a whim, and was admitted into the second year, studying vocal performance. During college, she performed jazz
and rock-n-roll standards in various local bars and restaurants accompanied by her friend, saxophone player Vlad Kolchin. She graduated with honors, and in 1996 took a job as a sound engineer at the Ufa subsidiary of the radio station "Europe Plus" (Европа +).
For the next couple of years Zemfira spent her days making advertisement recordings at the station and her nights on a computer, where she recorded the songs that would later become the singles Why (Почему), Snow (Снег), and Weatherman (Синоптик). In early 1998, Zemfira invited Rinat Akhmadiyev, Sergei Sozinov, Sergei Mirolyubov, and Vadim Solovyov to join Zemfira. Their first professional gig took place on June 19, 1998 as part of a festival celebrating the anniversary of a local radio station “Silver Rain Ufa.” Shortly after Zemfira sent out promo tapes to multiple Moscow producers, one of whom (Ilya Lagutenko
from Mumiy Troll
) was smitten with the material, and invited the band for some sessions in Moscow.
After the release of PMML (Russian abbreviation for Forgive Me My Love) in March 2000, what can only be described as “Zemfiromania” swept the country. Searching (Искала) and Ripe (Созрела) became instant hits, and the group was invited to headline the festival MAXIDROM
. Constant touring wore down on the band, and after the release of 14 Weeks of Silence the band took a break.
In September 2004 Zemfira began studies towards a degree in Philosophy at Moscow State University, but after the first semester she took a sabbatical and didn't resume her studies thereafter. On October 16 on the MTV Russia Awards show the singer performed We Are the Champions
together with the Queen
.
The forth studio album Vendetta
which consists of 15 tracks was released on March 1, 2005. The recording became a result of Zemfira's collaboration with several musiciaons: Igor Vdovin, Korney, Vlad Kreymer, Yuri Tsaler
and Oleg Pungin
. Primarily the album was going to be named "Oil", but the title was changed few days before the official release. "Vendetta" got many positive reviews,,.
In May and June 2007 Zemfira embarked on a short concert tour titled Déjà Vu, with performances held in smaller venues (clubs and small theatres). The tour culminated with a Moscow performance at the Green Theatre which was filmed by Renata Litvinova
. The tour program focused on stylish remakes of the singer's top hits, often reworked is styles such as jazz
, ska
, bossa nova
, and blues
. A new album, Thank You (Спасибо), was released at the beginning of October. It is described by Zemfira herself as 'very positive', in contrast to what she terms the 'restlessness' of Vendetta.
The concert movie Green Theatre in Zemfira, which mixes Zemfira's monologues with selected songs shot during her live performance at the open air show in Moscow, was released in several Russian digital movie theatres on February 21, 2008. Later it was also released on DVD
and Blu-ray
.
The final concert in support of Thank You was staged on April 1, 2008 at the Olimpiysky stadium
in Moscow; some journalists considered it as the best performance in her career. Later in June Zemfira was awarded an independent Steppenwolf prize established by a musical critic Artemy Troitsky
. She won in two categories: The Best Performance (for the Olimpiysky show) and The Best Album (Thank You). The movie-concert Green Theatre in Zemfira by Litvinova was named the best musical movie of the year.
On March 21, 2009 a long-awaited album of b-sides Z-Sides leaked into the net.
In June 2010 Zemfira wrote on her official website: "vacation is over" and announced a mini-tour in support of a deluxe-edition of her first three albums (Zemfira, PMML and 14 Weeks of Silence). On August 1 she performed a set of 4 songs on the closing concert of a pop-music contest New Wave
. It was her first performance since January 2009. The arrangements of this set were used in the mini-tour in September that included 5 cities: Saint-Petersburg, Yekaterinburg
, Minsk
, Kiev
and Moscow. Critics admitted that her old songs became more rhythmic and resembled demo-versions due to the new minimalistic style of arrangements. In October Zemfira took part in two tribute concerts "20 Years without KINO" in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg that were dedicated to the memory of Victor Tsoi. Her gig of four covers on Tsoi's songs was seen by some journalists as the most noticeable performance in the program.
On New Year's Eve 2011, the video version of two Moscow concerts staged in Crocus City Hall
and Strelka in September 2010 was broadcast on Dozhd' (Rain) TV channel. The video was directed by Renata Litvinova. Then the singer informed her fans that the release of her sixth album had moved to the fall 2011. The first single No Chance (Bez shansov) was presented on Nashe Radio
on April 15. During the next 3 months she gave three performances: on May 28 Zemfira took part in the international rock festival Maxidrom
along with The Prodigy
, Adam Lambert
, Korn
, Brainstorm
and other artists; then she became a Russian headliner of a Muz-TV Awards ceremony show at Olimpiysky stadium on June 3; on July 23 Zemfira performed at the Afisha Picnic
outdoor festival in Moscow as the Russian headliner of the main stage. During that gig she presented a new song presumably called Money.
Ufa
-Demographics:Nationally, dominated by Russian , Bashkirs and Tatars . In addition, numerous are Ukrainians , Chuvash , Mari , Belarusians , Mordovians , Armenian , Germans , Jews , Azeris .-Government and administration:Local...
, Bashkortostan
Bashkortostan
The Republic of Bashkortostan , also known as Bashkiria is a federal subject of Russia . It is located between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains. Its capital is the city of Ufa...
) is a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n rock artist of Bashkir
Bashkirs
The Bashkirs are a Turkic people indigenous to Bashkortostan extending on both parts of the Ural mountains, on the place where Europe meets Asia. Groups of Bashkirs also live in the republic of Tatarstan, Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Samara and Saratov Oblasts of...
descent. She has been performing since 1998 and has been immensely popular in Russia and other former Soviet republics
Post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also commonly known as the Former Soviet Union or former Soviet republics, are the 15 independent states that split off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in its dissolution in December 1991...
.
Biography
An ethnic Bashkir, she was born in a typical middle-class family - her mother is a doctor, and her father a history teacher. At the age of 4, Zemfira became interested in music, entering a music school the following year (where she studied piano performance and voice) and writing her first song when she was seven years old. Her older brother Ramil introduced her to rock music, which became her real passion – she listened to Black SabbathBlack Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
, Nazareth
Nazareth (band)
Nazareth is a Scottish hard rock band, founded in 1968, that had several hits in the UK in the early 1970s, and established an international audience with their 1975 album Hair of the Dog. Perhaps their best-known hit single was a cover of the ballad "Love Hurts", in 1975...
and Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
, learning to play the guitar. In the 7th grade, Zemfira split her time between music and basketball, becoming the captain of the Russian Girls’ Junior Basketball Team by 1990. She began to lose interest in classical music, preferring instead to hang out with friends in the streets of Ufa
Ufa
-Demographics:Nationally, dominated by Russian , Bashkirs and Tatars . In addition, numerous are Ukrainians , Chuvash , Mari , Belarusians , Mordovians , Armenian , Germans , Jews , Azeris .-Government and administration:Local...
and covering songs by Russian rock groups such as Kino, Nautilus Pompilius
Nautilus Pompilius (band)
Nautilus Pompilius , sometimes nicknamed Nau , was a prominent Soviet/Russian rock band formed by the lead singer Vyacheslav Butusov and bassist Dmitry Umetsky while the two studied in Sverdlovsk Institute of Architecture . The band, with its various incarnations, was active between the years 1983...
and Aquarium
Aquarium (group)
Aquarium or Akvarium is a Russian rock group, formed in Leningrad in 1972 by Boris Grebenshchikov, then a student of Applied Mathematics at Leningrad State University, and Anatoly Gunitsky, then a playwright and absurdist poet.-History:...
(who reached the peak of their popularity in the early 1990s).
At the urging of her mother, Zemfira continued with piano studies and graduated music school with honors. In her last year of high school, basketball competed with school work, and the singer abandoned the sport in favour of music. She took the entrance exams for the Ufa College of Fine Arts (Уфимское училище искусств) on a whim, and was admitted into the second year, studying vocal performance. During college, she performed jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock-n-roll standards in various local bars and restaurants accompanied by her friend, saxophone player Vlad Kolchin. She graduated with honors, and in 1996 took a job as a sound engineer at the Ufa subsidiary of the radio station "Europe Plus" (Европа +).
For the next couple of years Zemfira spent her days making advertisement recordings at the station and her nights on a computer, where she recorded the songs that would later become the singles Why (Почему), Snow (Снег), and Weatherman (Синоптик). In early 1998, Zemfira invited Rinat Akhmadiyev, Sergei Sozinov, Sergei Mirolyubov, and Vadim Solovyov to join Zemfira. Their first professional gig took place on June 19, 1998 as part of a festival celebrating the anniversary of a local radio station “Silver Rain Ufa.” Shortly after Zemfira sent out promo tapes to multiple Moscow producers, one of whom (Ilya Lagutenko
Ilia Lagutenko
Ilya Igorevich Lagutenko is the founder and lead singer of the band Mumiy Troll.He was born in Moscow, Soviet Union. Soon after his birth his father died, and the family moved to Vladivostok. In school he became engrossed in studying Chinese. He sang with a children’s choir that took him to many...
from Mumiy Troll
Mumiy Troll
Mumiy Troll is a Russian rock group, founded in 1983 in Vladivostok by vocalist and songwriter Ilya Lagutenko . The literal name of the band, 'The mummies' troll', is a pun on Moomin Troll, the series of Finnish children's books by Tove Jansson.Mumiy Troll broke up when Lagutenko, who graduated in...
) was smitten with the material, and invited the band for some sessions in Moscow.
1999 - 2005
Recording and production work on the debut album took place until May 10, 1999, when the debut was finally released. The promotion of Zemfira prior to the release included heavy rotation of singles AIDS (СПИД), Arrivederci (Aриведерчи), and Rockets (Ракеты) as well as the video clips for those songs. The band immediately went on tour, starting a tradition of celebrating their beginnings with a summer concert in Ufa while recording their second album Forgive Me My Love (Прости Меня Моя Любовь). The group enjoyed immense popularity from the start, in part because of heavy rotation on radio and television, and in part because a female rocker is a fairly rare and unusual concept for the Russian music scene (which to this day is dominated by scantily-clad female pop singers).After the release of PMML (Russian abbreviation for Forgive Me My Love) in March 2000, what can only be described as “Zemfiromania” swept the country. Searching (Искала) and Ripe (Созрела) became instant hits, and the group was invited to headline the festival MAXIDROM
Maxidrom
Maxidrom is an annual international musical festival organized by Radio Maximum station.-History:...
. Constant touring wore down on the band, and after the release of 14 Weeks of Silence the band took a break.
In September 2004 Zemfira began studies towards a degree in Philosophy at Moscow State University, but after the first semester she took a sabbatical and didn't resume her studies thereafter. On October 16 on the MTV Russia Awards show the singer performed We Are the Champions
We Are the Champions
"We Are the Champions" is a power ballad written by Freddie Mercury, recorded and performed by British rock band Queen for their 1977 album News of the World. One of their most famous and popular songs, it remains among rock's most recognisable anthems...
together with the Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
.
The forth studio album Vendetta
Vendetta
Vendetta may refer to:*Feud, a long-running argument or fight between parties-Film and television:* Vendetta, a 1919 German film featuring Harry Liedtke* Vendetta , an American drama produced by Howard Hughes...
which consists of 15 tracks was released on March 1, 2005. The recording became a result of Zemfira's collaboration with several musiciaons: Igor Vdovin, Korney, Vlad Kreymer, Yuri Tsaler
Yuri Tsaler
Yuriy Alexandrovich Tsaler is a Russian musician playing on solo guitar in the band Mumiy Troll.He studied piano at the Tchaikovsky Music Academy, then worked in a bread factory, for all of one day....
and Oleg Pungin
Oleg Pungin
Oleg Pungin, is the drummer of the band Mumiy Troll.From 1st to 10th grade he was a member of the children’s ensemble, Schastlivoye Detstvo . At the end of the 1980s — after finishing school — he worked in a Pacific Fleet song and dance ensemble...
. Primarily the album was going to be named "Oil", but the title was changed few days before the official release. "Vendetta" got many positive reviews,,.
2007 - present
On February 14 a collection of music videos Zemfira.DVD was released. It contains all singer's clips, except AIDS and TrafficIn May and June 2007 Zemfira embarked on a short concert tour titled Déjà Vu, with performances held in smaller venues (clubs and small theatres). The tour culminated with a Moscow performance at the Green Theatre which was filmed by Renata Litvinova
Renata Litvinova
Renata Muratovna Litvinova is a Russian actress, director, and screenwriter. She was born to a Russian mother and a Tatar father...
. The tour program focused on stylish remakes of the singer's top hits, often reworked is styles such as jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
, bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
, and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
. A new album, Thank You (Спасибо), was released at the beginning of October. It is described by Zemfira herself as 'very positive', in contrast to what she terms the 'restlessness' of Vendetta.
The concert movie Green Theatre in Zemfira, which mixes Zemfira's monologues with selected songs shot during her live performance at the open air show in Moscow, was released in several Russian digital movie theatres on February 21, 2008. Later it was also released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
.
The final concert in support of Thank You was staged on April 1, 2008 at the Olimpiysky stadium
Olympic Stadium (Moscow arena)
Olympic Stadium, known locally as the Olimpiyskiy or Olimpiski, is a large indoor arena, located in Moscow, Russia. It was built for the 1980 Summer Olympics and hosted the basketball and boxing events. A part of the Olimpiyskiy Sports Complex, it makes up one architectural ensemble with another...
in Moscow; some journalists considered it as the best performance in her career. Later in June Zemfira was awarded an independent Steppenwolf prize established by a musical critic Artemy Troitsky
Artemy Troitsky
Art, Artem, Artemiy or Artemy Troitsky is a Russian journalist, music critic, concert promoter, broadcaster, and an academic who has taught classes on music journalism at Moscow State University. He was born in Yaroslavl, then in the Soviet Union...
. She won in two categories: The Best Performance (for the Olimpiysky show) and The Best Album (Thank You). The movie-concert Green Theatre in Zemfira by Litvinova was named the best musical movie of the year.
On March 21, 2009 a long-awaited album of b-sides Z-Sides leaked into the net.
In June 2010 Zemfira wrote on her official website: "vacation is over" and announced a mini-tour in support of a deluxe-edition of her first three albums (Zemfira, PMML and 14 Weeks of Silence). On August 1 she performed a set of 4 songs on the closing concert of a pop-music contest New Wave
New Wave (competition)
New Wave is an international contest for new stars, which usually lasts for six days: 3 contest days, 2 special event days and, at the end, the day where the contest's results are announced followed by an ending concert....
. It was her first performance since January 2009. The arrangements of this set were used in the mini-tour in September that included 5 cities: Saint-Petersburg, Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg is a major city in the central part of Russia, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Situated on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range, it is the main industrial and cultural center of the Urals Federal District with a population of 1,350,136 , making it Russia's...
, Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
, Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
and Moscow. Critics admitted that her old songs became more rhythmic and resembled demo-versions due to the new minimalistic style of arrangements. In October Zemfira took part in two tribute concerts "20 Years without KINO" in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg that were dedicated to the memory of Victor Tsoi. Her gig of four covers on Tsoi's songs was seen by some journalists as the most noticeable performance in the program.
On New Year's Eve 2011, the video version of two Moscow concerts staged in Crocus City Hall
Crocus City Hall
Crocus City Hall is a concert hall in the north-west to MKAD, Myakinino, near Moscow. The building is constructed in memory of Russian-Azerbaijani singer Muslim Magomaev and owned by millionaire Aras Agalarov. The hall has 6200 seats....
and Strelka in September 2010 was broadcast on Dozhd' (Rain) TV channel. The video was directed by Renata Litvinova. Then the singer informed her fans that the release of her sixth album had moved to the fall 2011. The first single No Chance (Bez shansov) was presented on Nashe Radio
Nashe Radio
Nashe Radio is a rock music station designed to promote Russian rock bands . It is broadcast in every major Russian city as well as having an internet stream...
on April 15. During the next 3 months she gave three performances: on May 28 Zemfira took part in the international rock festival Maxidrom
Maxidrom
Maxidrom is an annual international musical festival organized by Radio Maximum station.-History:...
along with The Prodigy
The Prodigy
The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music group formed by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Braintree, Essex. Along with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, and other acts, The Prodigy have been credited as pioneers of the big beat genre, which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s...
, Adam Lambert
Adam Lambert
Adam Mitchel Lambert is an American singer, songwriter, and actor from San Diego, California. In May 2009, he finished as the runner-up on the eighth season of American Idol...
, Korn
Korn
Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...
, Brainstorm
Brainstorm (Latvian band)
Brainstorm is a Latvian pop/rock band. The band became popular internationally in 2000, when they finished third in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 with the song "My Star"....
and other artists; then she became a Russian headliner of a Muz-TV Awards ceremony show at Olimpiysky stadium on June 3; on July 23 Zemfira performed at the Afisha Picnic
Afisha Picnic
The Afisha Picnic is a one-day outdoor festival held in Moscow, Russia every summer. It takes place on the territory of Kolomenskoye, a former tsar’s estate, now a state-owned historical, architectural and nature reserve museum, located only 10 km south-east of the city center...
outdoor festival in Moscow as the Russian headliner of the main stage. During that gig she presented a new song presumably called Money.
Personal life
Sometimes moody, self-assured, enigmatic and flamboyant, Zemfira has found herself an object of constant obsession by the Russian media and paparazzi. She added to the furor by limiting her contact with the media after an initial avalanche of invasive and libelous publicity. Multiple Russian tabloids had speculated about the singer’s sexual orientation, drawing largely on references found in her song lyrics, and for the last couple of years romantically linking her with actress, director and screenwriter Renata Litvinova. The singer herself has never discussed her private life.Albums
- ZemfiraZemfira (album)Zemfira is Russian rock singer Zemfira's debut album, released in 1999 by DMI Records. The album had sold over 700,000 copies in Russia.-Track listing:#"Почему" #"Снег" #"Синоптик" #"Ромашки"...
(Земфира) (1999) - Forgive Me My LoveForgive Me My LoveForgive Me My Love is Russian singer Zemfira's second album. It features the hit singles "Forgive Me My Love" and "You Want?". It further popularized her unique pop-rock sound...
(Прости Меня Моя Любовь) (2000) - 14 Weeks of Silence (14 Недель Тишины) (2002)
- VendettaVendetta (Zemfira album)Vendetta is the fourth album by Russian singer Zemfira. The album sold around 500,000 copies in Russia and about 200,000 copies in other post-Soviet republics.-Track listing:#"НебоМореОблака" 3:37...
(Вендетта) (2005) - Zemfira.LiveZemfira.Live-Track listing:#"Самолёт" #"Любовь как случайная смерть" #"Блюз" #"Повесица" #"Ариведерчи"...
(2006) - Thank YouThank You (Zemfira album)Thank You is the fifth album by Zemfira. It was released on October 2007 with the participation of "Kommersant'" magazine. The album has sold about 350, 000 copies in Russia...
(Спасибо) (2007) - Z-Sides (2009)
- Zemfira.Live2 (2010)
Singles
- Snow (Снег(Sneg)) (1999)
- Goodbye (До Свидания(Do svidania)) (2000)
- Traffic (Трафик(Trafik)) (2001)
- 10 boys (10 мальчиков(10 mal'chikov)) (2008)
- No chance (Без шансов (Bez shansov)) (2011)
Filmography
- Goddess: How I Fell In Love (Богиня: Как я полюбила) (2004)
- Green Theater in Zemfira (Зеленый театр в Земфире) (2008)