Jamala and ONUKA release their first joint song — 18 years after they met
ONUKA once only recorded sopilka flute parts on Jamala's songs. Now the two have released a duet about the right of heroes to simply be human — and sang it live in Kyiv that same evening.
Jamala and ONUKA in a photo for the release of “Liudyna”
Jamala and ONUKA released Liudyna ("Human"), their first joint song, on 16 October. That same evening they performed it live for the first time at Jamala's concert at Concert Hall in Kyiv.
The song premiered on Jamala's YouTube channel.
They have known each other since 2008. Back then Jamala came to record a commercial at Yevhen Filatov's studio, and Nata Zhyzhchenko — now ONUKA — was his girlfriend; today the two are married. Since then ONUKA had done little more than record sopilka flute parts on Jamala's songs. Jamala suggested a joint song about a year ago, and ONUKA was on board as soon as she heard the demo.
What the song is about
According to Jamala, Liudyna is about our habit of turning parents, partners, friends and artists into heroes — and about the right of each of them to simply be human. The war, she says, has only made the theme more acute. The track blends electronics with Jamala's vocals, while ONUKA's sopilka rings out in the chorus.
The lyric video came out on Jamala's channel on 16 October and drew more than 144,000 views in five days. She had been building up to the premiere: on 9 October she shared a teaser, and on the 11th she invited fans to be the first to hear the song live at 41 Kyrylivska Street.
“It feels as if, with nothing but our energy and strength, we stopped all the shelling the day before yesterday,” Jamala wrote after the Kyiv concert.
After the premiere
The Kyiv night was a continuation of Jamala's autumn tour of Ukraine: from 2 September to 11 October she played 18 cities, from Ivano-Frankivsk to Mykolaiv, and after Kyiv she also performed in Lviv. After the concert ONUKA thanked Jamala for the celebration they shared, and she is already preparing a show of her own — the VDOMA programme with NAONI (the National Academic Orchestra of Folk Instruments) at the Lviv National Opera on 28 October.
Both artists' voices are well known on our air too: we play remixes of ONUKA's Svitanok ("Dawn") and Misto ("City"), and Jamala can be heard on Krok ("Step"), a track she recorded with Cape Cod.
Before that, ONUKA released “To Heaven” with France's Deep Forest, a song dedicated to the victims of wars.
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