Big Russian singer

The Manizh goes to Eurovision. "Medusa" talks about her music - at the same time deep and impudent

At the beginning of the week, Manizh Sangin, speaking under the name Manizha, won the first open vote for the participant from Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest in the first -year voting - after that, not onlythe numerous commentators in social networks, but also Yana Rudkovskaya, Vladimir Poznner and Yuri Loza spoke about her song. At the request of Medusa, the journalist Artem Makarsky talks about how the image of the singer and her music changed over the years - and from what the Russian Woman is collected from the elements inherent in the solo creativity of the elements.

The Manizh did not immediately attract the attention of the listener, and her songs were at first much more modest than those that she sings now. On its first album, Manuscript (2017) flirted with instagram aesthetics-and not just like that. The first popularity was brought to her by low -budget clips, which she laid out on Instagram. “Manuscript” is musically comparing with the account in this social network - it is quite diverse, but gathers in a whole picture, and the music on it is as glossy as the photographs of users. “Manuscript” also seems to be the search for our own voice of Mange-the version of the album, which we can now listen to striming services, differs from the original . In February 2017, it ended in tracks in Russian (including the chandelier of the “chandelier”), now they were replaced by the Single Little Lady and I Love Too Much.

In the desire to adhere to one language, the previous manage is very different from the current manage, but there are traces of what we can hear in the “Russian Woman” is also on “Manuscript”. First of all, this applies to the vigorous percussion, which can be heard in the tracks “New Love” and “Little Lady” - and the motives of the music of the peoples of the world are in the track “Africa”. In the current work of Maniji, however, it is impossible, however, to note some specific music that it quotes-it becomes a cosmopolitan performer who does not exploit any particular culture, but creates something of her on the basis of previously absorbed. However, it is worth noting that the melody of the new songs of Manih in some way echoes the music of Tajik pop artists, for example, Nigina Amonolova and Nargis Bandishoeva, although it does not resemble any specific moments of their compositions.

“Manuscript” just shows what the performer listened to: the bass reminds of Radiohead, the rhythm in “I Love Too Much” - about the electronics of the nineties, for example, mobs - and the performer’s powerful voice is primarily striving for a insinuating solid sound.

A much more integral work for Manizhi was the completely Russian -speaking album “YAIM” (2018) - on it the performer went into synthesizer sound. The anxious sounds of the song “Emerald” seem to predict the direction of Zemfira’s music in 2021 on her single “Austin”; The lyrics “House”, in which, among relatives, is not mentioned, the father for the first time reveals one of the topics of “Russian Woman” about an incomplete family. Home violence is discussed in the song "Mom" - and in the video for her. In full accordance with the name of the manage album finds its “I”, and her voice gains strength. The composition of the same name “I” seems to be the best on the album - it is in it that the author manages to open most of all to the listener and become much more frank. This directness, which is revealed in lines like “I am devotion, I am betrayal, I am fear, I am before, I am an obligation” is another feature of Mange as a performer, embodied in “Russian Woman”.

This is not to say that the interest of Mani in activist activities began at the "IAM". One more song “Manuscript”, “sometimes”, a video with albino models and a model from the Oldushka agency, which gives the elderly, was shot. However, it was in the mini-albums and the singles of Maniji, who came out after her first two records that the position on a variety of social problems began to appear more and more clearly. The first such statement was the mini-album “Womanizha”, on which the singer returned to the Soul-sound, much more voluminous and bright than earlier, as well as acoustic, insinuating compositions. One of these was the song “Woman”, on which the Manizha easily switched between Russian and English, as is now happening in her songs constantly - and is embodied in “Russian Woman” with the line “But the broken Family does not break me”. The performer who tried his hand in London feels that her identity is between Russian and English, between Moscow, London, Dushanbe and other cities - and this divided identity is more and more manifested in its texts.

However, the most spirit of the “Russian Woman” is manifested in the single in the last two years. While the single for many musicians is only something preceding the album or simply something not too compulsory, for Mani it is big and bright statements. The brilliant “Unsulsense”, “Vanya” and “A person needs a person” who came out in a row can not only be considered the best songs of Maniji, but in a sense, it was they who predetermined the sound of “Russian Woman”. In them, ethnic motifs were combined with modern pop music and a small amount of soul. Among the three -mentioned Vanya, it is precisely the work with the choir, which is now in the song, with which the Manizh will go to Eurovision.

Many musicians go to this contest, either slightly simplifying their main work, or setting their best qualities for show - about “Russian Woman” we can say that both of these options are suitable. Of course, this song is a slightly simplified version of the most dynamic songs of Maniji. At the same time, it is noticeable that with its principles it is not in any way-this is the same impudent, whipping and not climbing in the word in the pocket of art-pop. Manizh has already talked about the life of a woman in Russia, but only in her acoustic and modest hypostasis, and not dynamic and cheerful. Now it has changed-juggling Russian and English, ethnic instruments and a stubborn bat, in a choir, in which there is something from the Russian folk tradition, and as if random sounds, the maneus shows that a modern Russian woman does not belong to a particular nation, easily absorbing all the experience.

However, this is not the song that cannot be talked about in separation from activism-on the contrary, in this minimalist number you can see how some separate points appeared in the “Russian Woman” from the most different stages of Mange's work. It would be too loud to say that it was to this song that she went for a long time - however, you can see how the performer shouted her own style, and “I” gained final confidence. Despite the fact that she has long been over her shoulders with “ice” and Crocus, not even the very fact of a trip to Eurovision, and the reaction to it allows us to say that the maneus has already become a large Russian singer. You can relate to this competition differently, but right now we are before the case when the musician is not threatened with oblivion after participating in it.

Artem Makarsky