Childhood and youth
Eldzhey (real name - Alexey Konstantinovich Uzenyuk) was born on July 9, 1994 in Novosibirsk. Alexey has a younger brother, Danil. The guy became interested in music in high school - one of his friends took the boy to a local rap battle, which inspired the future artist to work in this genre. Several times the rapper showed his reciting abilities at local and online battles, but after that he decided to start creating tracks.
Eljay in his youth
Quick Facts
- 27. He has neither higher nor special musical education. After completing nine years of secondary school, he entered one of the Novosibirsk medical technical schools, which he never graduated from.
- 28. Despite the fact that Alexey became popular relatively recently, he released his first album six years ago, in 2013, the disc was called “Gundezh” and consisted of eleven songs.
- 29. The themes of Eljay's early tracks are noticeably different from those of his current songs.
- 30. I became acquainted with rap at the age of thirteen, when I accidentally got into a rap battle with a group of friends. I was impressed by what was happening on stage, as well as by the unusual musical presentation of the material, after which I decided to participate in similar events myself, becoming the winner of one of the battles.
- 31. He is quite successful both in the musical and financial spheres, since he was able to earn decent money in a relatively short period of time. Now one performer’s concert is valued at at least a million rubles.
- 32. Two years ago, Alexey signed an advertising contract with Yves Saint Laurent, becoming the face of one of the company’s perfume lines.
- 33. In 2020, he created his own record label, on which the group from Odessa “Black Cinema” is currently recording. The studio is searching for promising performers who would be interested in mutually beneficial cooperation with the specified label.
- 34. In February 2020, he became a guest of the “Evening Urgant” program, during which he performed one of his most famous songs – “Minimal”. His appearance on TV did not cause a negative reaction and was accompanied by mostly positive reviews.
- 35. At the initial stage of his musical career, he independently raised money for recording equipment, usually amateur, with which he processed sound and recorded tracks.
- 36. Alexey's younger brother, Daniil, is a video blogger. In addition to his notable activity on YouTube, he maintains several communities on social networks, where he posts not only his own videos, but also clips, as well as concert videos of his brother.
- 37. He gained his first popularity after three songs recorded and released into the public domain.
- 38. He prefers to listen to music of different styles, giving preference not to specific styles, but to the originality of certain compositions. Considers originality to be the most important feature of a good song.
- 39. More than once, Eljay was called a drug addict, referring to his original appearance. However, these rumors were never confirmed.
- 40. Fans of the artist call the tests of his early tracks “evil lyrics.”
- 41. Participated in the recording of the video blog “Khach’s Diary”.
- 42. He calls himself an absolutely tolerant person and tolerant of all nationalities.
- 43. Maintains accounts on several social networks: Instagram, Twitter, VKontakte.
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Music career
In 2009, Alexey acquired the necessary musical equipment and began recording tracks in the style of “evil lyrics,” as fans later dubbed it.
After the guy posted the third track online, people paid attention to him. After graduating from school, Alexey entered medical school, but part-time work and full-time studies did not allow the guy to study music - in the end, the choice was made by the latter. In 2013, Eljay, together with rapper Mal, released his debut album “Gundezh” with 11 compositions. The very next year, fans were able to appreciate the artist’s second album, entitled “Bosses are Smoking,” in the recording of which rappers Chet, Tetris, Montblunt and Dom1no took part.
Eldzhey's real name is Alexey Uzenyuk
In January 2020, Alexey released his third album “Pushka” with 8 tracks. By this time, Eldzhey already had many fans, which allowed the musician to organize concerts in different cities of Russia. At the beginning of February next year, the world saw the artist’s new album “Catacombs”, in the recording of which Montblunt took part, as well as the duet MiyaGi and Endgame (their joint song “Music” gained particular popularity).
Eljay, MiyaGi and Endgame
In the summer of 2020, the musician moved to Moscow. According to the artist, in Novosibirsk there was no such studio and people who could work well. Alexey came to the capital with his last money and checked into a hostel to record an album. “There was no money for a return ticket,” the singer recalled.
In the capital, at the backstage of Max Korzh’s concert, Eljay met his future manager. In the fall of 2020, the artist released the track “Disconnect” together with singer Kravets, and then the next album “Sayonara Boy”, which was received with great interest by listeners.
Eljay without lenses
At this time, Eljay changed his image - the singer’s new style became closer to the style of the South African Zef group “Die Antwoord”. The musician’s distinctive feature is his white eyes – the guy achieves this effect using special lenses, which Alexey sometimes does not take off even in everyday life.
In 2020, the rapper released the album “Sayonara Boyろ” and a video for the track “Torn Jeans,” which became another hit for the musician. In August of the same year, Eldzhey published the undisputed hit “Pink Wine,” recorded together with singer Feduk, which instantly found itself at the top of the Russian music charts. The song received the VK Music Awards, becoming the most listened to on the social network: in a year it was played more than 200 million times.
Eldzhey & Feduk - Pink Wine In December 2020, the talk show “Evening Urgant” presented a parody of the song “Pink Wine”, in which presenter Ivan Urgant, comedian Alexander Gudkov, journalist Yuri Dud, singer Igor Nikolaev and the rapper Feduk himself took part . Also, blogger Yuri Khovansky created a parody of this track with the participation of Dmitry Malikov.
At the end of the year, Uzenyuk appeared in an episode of Amiran Sardarov’s YouTube show “Khach’s Diary”, in which he spoke about the opening of his own label, which at that time included the group “Black Cinema”. The singer also became the face of the Yves Saint Laurent perfume series “La Nuit De L'homme Intense”.
Other facts
Eljay lenses
In 2020, the artist decided to radically change his image and stage image. The result of these changes was the appearance of tattoos, a new hairstyle and special white lenses - the main feature of the performer, giving his eyes the effect of having no pupils.
Wearing lenses is not caused by vision problems, although initially some of the artist’s fans thought he was blind, while others were simply interested in what was wrong with his eyes. A unique answer to this frequently asked and rather boring question for the artist was the song “What’s wrong with my eyes?”
According to Eljay, wearing the lenses did not affect his vision and did not cause negative health consequences. Alexey admits that the lenses do not carry a hidden message, but are nothing more than an element of the image; in everyday life he can do just fine without them.
Scandal with Feduk
After the release of the joint song “Pink Wine” by Feduk and Eldzhey in the summer of 2020, which became popular in Russia and neighboring countries, the performer blocked the video for this track posted on his YouTube channel, citing poor color correction and inconsistency in the release of the video clip. At the time of blocking, the clip had already collected almost two million views.
In fact, he was outraged by the fact that Feduk’s name was placed first in the title of the track; besides, the artists were recording on different labels, which became the precursor to the conflict situation. Both mutually exchanged barbs and harsh expressions, but did not begin to quarrel for a long time and openly. Subsequently, the conflict was settled thanks to a compromise solution found, the video was soon unblocked, and the clip is now freely available on the Internet, albeit with a slightly changed title - now Eldzhey is put first in the title.
This conflict aroused the interest of many performers, most of whom spoke negatively about Eljay’s actions. But everyone involved in the scandal stated that they had no claims against each other.
Scandalous photo shoot with “People Talk”
After gaining popularity, Alexey agreed on an interview and photo shoot with People Talk magazine, in return demanding clothes from famous world brands from the publication’s representatives. But he never gave an interview in the traditional sense of the word, although he received the required clothes, but as a prop for photography.
The artist used the photos taken during this photo shoot and sent to him for further approval for personal purposes, without coordinating his actions with the editors. At the end of the photo shoot, he appropriated all the items for himself and never returned them. True, he still had to pay for them, but after numerous reminders.
Translation of the word "Sayonara" and its meaning for Eljay
Many fans of Alexey are interested in the translation of the word “Sayonara”, which is often found in the lyrics of his songs.
It began to be used for the first time in 2020, after the release of the album of the same name, which is characterized by a fundamentally new sound and presentation of material in the artist’s career. The word "Sayonara" is taken from the Japanese language and translated means "goodbye".
Thus, Eljay symbolically says goodbye to his past image and style, entering the next creative stage.
Scandals during concerts
Known for his concert scandals. For example, during last year’s performance in Ryazan, one of the spectators threw a beer mug at him, and at a concert held in the city of Voronezh, Alexey was angry, as it seemed to him, because the spectators turned on the flashlights at the wrong moment.
Income
Based on the amount of fees received by Alexey in 2020, he is the richest in the ranking of young Russian performers - his total last year’s income is approximately 53 million rubles.
In his own words, with this money he provides significant assistance to his parents and brother: for example, the performer recently gave his father a new BMW for six million rubles, bought expensive gifts for his mother and brother, including branded clothing, and presented a Rolex watch. for $328,000 to Nastya Ivleeva.
Cars
If we dwell in more detail on the performer’s cars, we should mention the recent photographs of the cars of Eldzhey and Nastya Ivleeva, which they posted on the Internet. The total cost of these machines is approaching 20 million rubles.
Recently, the artist became the owner of a BMW i8 Coupe; the price of such a car in its basic configuration exceeds 9.5 million rubles. After the purchase, he somewhat modernized the appearance of the car and placed inscriptions on it with his pseudonym Sayonara Boy, which was perceived by many of his fans as kitsch and vulgarity.
And Alexey’s girlfriend now drives a BMW M850i; it will cost the potential owner at least 8.6 million rubles in the minimum configuration. Until recently, the performer drove a silver Audi TT, and Ivleeva was often spotted driving an Infinity Q60.
Ljay's tattoos
The artist is the owner of many tattoos applied to various parts of the body.
Thus, on the performer’s face there is an image of a small brass knuckles; such a tattoo is often found among foreign, and more recently, some domestic rap artists, representing a kind of stylization of gangster tattoos. On the forehead, right at the hairline, there is another tattoo, consisting of a set of coordinates. It is unclear what this drawing symbolizes, since the artist never revealed the essence of the numbers stamped on his forehead.
On the singer's neck is the inscription "Sayonara", the name of one of his records "Sayonara Boy". This word was taken by him from the Japanese language and translated into Russian as “farewell.” Under this nickname the artist can be found on some social networks.
The Japanese theme is close to Alexey and does not limit itself only to the design on the neck. On the singer's collarbones are shurikens, one on each. Shurikens are the traditional weapons of Japanese ninjas, usually shaped like stars and designed to be thrown.
Most of the drawings are on Alexey’s hands; here there are a number of small and larger images, as well as a whole composition in the shape of a “sleeve”, running along the entire length of the arm. The sleeve consists of many small tattoos, including even a few portraits. On one of the fingers of the performer’s hands there is a design in the form of a bullet, symbolizing accuracy and determination, a “dead” smiley is depicted on the hand, and the wrist is decorated with an original bracelet made in the form of barbed wire.
In addition, on the side of Alexey’s hand there is the inscription “ZEF”, this is a rather interesting abbreviation that encourages its owner to dress stylishly, while giving preference to inexpensive things, while remaining independent of brands. In the forearm area there is a tattoo in the form of a lamppost with wires radiating from it to the side. Some fans of the performer tend to understand the message of this tattoo in the energy transmitted from the artist to the listeners.
On Alexey’s stomach is the number 149, which stands for “iloveyou” (i.e. “I love you”). The addressee of this message has not yet been established, but a number of Eljay’s fans believe that it was sent specifically to him.
Accusations of plagiarism
At the beginning of 2020, Alexey released the song “Sayonara baby” together with the performer from Kosovo Era Istrefi, in which many listeners recognized the motives heard in the composition “Was du Liebe nennst”, recently released by the German musician Bausa.
The singer himself did not comment on the striking similarity of the two tracks, but his manager, Nikolai Fomin, expressed his opinion on this matter. He stated that it is simply impossible to copy and release on the Internet a song by a now very popular German musician, whose video has collected more than 100 million views and an equal number of streams. In addition, Fomin claims that Bausa approves of Eldzhey’s work, and therefore took a direct part in the work on the song “Sayonara baby” and in its mixing.
In addition, the manager noted a certain popularity of his ward in Germany, as well as in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, where musical products from Germany are popular, which, in his opinion, makes such theft not only impossible, but also meaningless. Fomin called the song “Sayonara baby” a good example of an initially locally successful composition, which was subsequently improved and finalized, as a result of which it gained even greater popularity.
Thus, the almost identical sound of both songs was attributed to his collaboration with the author of the original song, Bausa, and to his direct participation in the development of Alexey’s track.
However, this is not the first time the artist has been accused of musical theft. Thus, the composition “360°”, released last year, was often compared on the Internet with the track “Nede Mette”, its author is the Danish artist Blak. At the same time, Eldzhey’s fellow countrymen, the Novosibirsk band “WOW,” accused him of plagiarizing their song “My Love Say No,” which Eldzhey released as the track “1love.”
Eljay's personal life
In 2020, it became known that Alexey was dating a girl named Anastasia Drozdova. Not much is known about the singer’s chosen one, except that she has known Eldzhey for a long time (she also once lived in Novosibirsk and, according to rumors, the romance of the young people began even then) and is his same age.
Eljay and his ex-girlfriend Nastya
However, already in June it became clear that Eldzhey had romantic feelings for the host of “Heads and Tails” Nastya Ivleeva. She starred in his video for the song “360”.
Nastya Ivleeva and Eldzhey
In September 2020, the couple got married, Nastya took the surname Uzenyuk.
