Nevika sings in Belarusian, but sometimes her songs get more listens in Russia
"This song was listened to 1.5 million times in Russia, and 150 times in Belarus. I wanted to do import substitution, but it turned out to be export."
Singer Nevika (Viktoryia Valatovich). Photo from her Instagram
Nevika's real name is Viktoryia Valatovich. The girl grew up in a village. Her mother and grandmother spoke Belarusian, and education at school was also conducted in Belarusian.
The true tragedy of the Belarusian village is vividly evidenced by the fact that both the regular and music schools that the singer attended closed soon after the girl received her diploma. The reason is quite prosaic: there were not enough students.
In one of her interviews, Viktoryia said that she had been writing songs since she was 12 years old, and she planned to enter a music college, but "smart people" talked her out of it. They said it was impossible to earn a living through creativity in Belarus.
Then the girl — a gold medalist, by the way — went to the economics faculty of the Academy of Management. She gave up on music. But the situation suddenly changed when friends gave her a synthesizer.
At that moment, a long-forgotten dream spread its wings somewhere in her soul. The girl's life seemed to divide: the artist Nevika was added to Viktoryia, who worked as an economist.
The singer began her path on the Belarusian stage with songs in Russian, but soon realized it wasn't her.
Promoting songs in Belarusian is not easy: there is no national streaming service in the country. She has to abide by the rules of Russian "Yandex.Music" or European Spotify. And, of course, there's a much greater chance of getting into someone's playlist if you sing in Russian.
But Nevika doesn't give up. The girl manages her entire project independently: she has neither a sound engineer nor an arranger (Viktoryia learned all this herself). She also has no professional photographer or videographer: all photos are taken by the singer with the help of a tripod or friends, and then she processes the photos and videos herself.
Last year, she released the track "Dolya" (Fate), which she calls her most sincere, as it brings together two generations — Viktoryia's voice is accompanied by the voice of her 95-year-old grandmother.
And indeed, Nevika creates something cosmic. The girl categorizes her tracks as indie. Its name comes from the word "independent" — from generally accepted genres and norms.
In interviews, Viktoryia has repeatedly said that she doesn't dream of becoming the next Anna Asti or MakSіm. She wants to create something truly her own — soulful and native.
She gave her first solo concert in 2023 in a rather intimate setting — at the Yakub Kolas Museum. Then there were performances at small Belarusian clubs and music festivals "Shlyakh Tsmoka" (Dragon's Path), Stereo Weekend.
Last year, Nevika was named "Discovery of the Year" at "Song of the Year Belarus".
Surprisingly, sometimes Belarusian-language songs gather more listens in Russia than in Belarus. As an example, she cites the song Vishniya. "This song was listened to 1.5 million times in Russia, and 150 times in Belarus. I wanted to do import substitution, but it turned out to be export," the artist joked on TikTok and explained that the statistics were collected by the distributor across various platforms.