Two people are practicing between air raid alarms
The KLOE Song “Stefania” inspired by the Ukrainian Soldiers in Ternopil, Ukraine, which was ruled out by Russia’s invasion
Musicians from more than two dozen countries will go head-to-head for the right to represent their nation in the grand final of the third edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool on Saturday.
A spotlight is shining on Ukraine, where the Folk-Rap group Kalush Orchestra won the competition last year with its song “Stefania” less than three months after Russia’s invasion.
The winning country usually hosts an elaborate production featuring thousands of workers and 12 months of preparation after the contest. A panel of experts from the U.K., which placed second, ruled that it was too dangerous for Ukraine to do so because of Russia’s ongoing war.
Tvorchi is an electronic music duo which is made up of Andrii Hutsuliak, who is a Ukrainian producer, and Jimoh Augustus Kehinde who is a Nigerian vocalist.
That year they won three Yuna awards, including for band and album of the year, and debuted Road at a massive concert at the Kyiv Velotrek (a cycling track) that critics called “the best solo show of the year in Ukraine.”
Their song “Heart of Steel” was inspired, Hutsuliak said, by the soldiers who worked to defend the now-ruined city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine, holding out months longer than anyone imagined possible. The soldiers made their final stand at the sprawling Azovstal steel plant.
“We’re telling the Ukrainians that they will fight until the end, which is peace,” Hutsuliak says. They have hearts of steel so we want to show them that. They have no brittle spirits. No, they are strong, mind and body.
During their interview in Ternopil, a city in westernUkraine, in February, Hutsuliak and Kenny spoke about their journey from late-night kitchen jam sessions to bomb shelter rehearsals to the global stage.
Both Kenny and Hutsuliak were interested in music and had gone to the same medical university. They only met by chance, or what Hutsuliak calls fate.
Hutsuliak offered to help Kenny — who had been in the country for some three years at that point — with his Ukrainian as well. Looking back now, he stresses he wasn’t in the habit of randomly approaching strangers.
“I did it once in my life and … I’m not going to do it. [again], because I don’t know what was in my head [at] the time,” Hutsuliak says. I think that was a sign of fate. Something pushed us forward, that’s how our friendship started.
“And wow, I was impressed so much,” Hutsuliak says. Jeffrey started writing lyrics when I cooked some pasta in my kitchen and after I took my laptop, I made some music and played it on my computer.
The two kept making and performing music under the name Tvorchi, which was suggested by a friend and means “creative” in Ukrainian. They released their first album, The Parts, in 2018, followed by Disco Lights in 2019, 13 Waves in 2020 and Road in 2021.
There was a lot of new music that we were releasing, shot music videos, and performed all over the country and around the world. “That was like, a life of artists.”
The Heart of Steel: Fundraising with Soldiers and Soldiers in the midst of a Cold War and for displaced people in the Middle East
He and Kenny spent the first few weeks buying things like medicine, food and camouflage nets for soldiers and people in the hardest-hit regions. But they soon focused their efforts elsewhere.
Kenny says, “We have to show who we are as people and who other people are, in the way they helped when the situation started.” “It made us understand how to channel energy into doing something positive in a negative situation as well.”
Tvorchi is performing in a number of cities around the globe to raise money for Ukrainian military and children affected by the war. They also perform for Ukrainian soldiers, doctors and refugees, which they call a big honor and responsibility.
They’ve performed on truck beds and at military camps, exchanging hats and trinkets with soldiers there. Some of them have a car, says Hutsuliak.
They chose “Heart of Steel” for the competition because of the deep emotions they put into it, and the message they wanted the world to hear.
“We were inspired by the videos because we didn’t understand how hard it was over there,” Hutsuliak says. “But when we saw those videos, we only felt strength, confidence, and we saw those unbreakable … people.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/11/1175184982/eurovision-2023-ukraine-tvorchi
Songwriting in a Bombed Underground Station: Kenny, Gas Masks and Nuclear Symbols on the Lattice
The duo practiced and worked with a team on the technical aspects of the song, as they prepared for the national selection competition in December.
“It was pretty difficult because you don’t know when you can be hit by a missile,” Hutsuliak says. We were trying to make our schedule work as we were walking from shelter to shelter.
The selection show was held in a bombed out metro station, with ten acts performing on a small platform between train tracks.
Kenny sang onstage wearing sunglasses and a gold hazmat suit, flanked by dancers wearing gas masks and in front of a screen with flashing red lights and spinning nuclear symbols. The duo describe the production as an acoustic and logistical challenge and credit their team with making it all work.
Kenny recalls that it was crazy. At that time, the trains were moving. It was really cold and a lot of us got sick as well … If the trains hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t know it was a metro station.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/11/1175184982/eurovision-2023-ukraine-tvorchi
The Ukranian music scene during the recent tvorchi war: from a boy from Nigeria to a place of unity and diversity
The Ukranian team has won the tvorchi win in 2004 and 2016 Folk music has been incorporated into previous acts’ performances, and Hutsuliak is excited to showcase a side of Ukraine he doesn’t think many people expect: electronic music.
“Ukraine is … a nice country with a lot of different people who make different music,” he says, listing genres including hip-hop, rap, folk, pop and electronic. Kenny uses Afrobeats and mainstream pop as his own musical influences while he takes inspiration from Mozart and Skrillex.
“We would like to say, world, we do not want to be mistreated,” Hutsuliak says. “We want you to look at us, get inspired from us, be united like we are, and help us in this fight.”
They hope viewers around the world continue to support Ukrainians financially, by donating to the foundations which raised money for its military and civilians and to United 24, a government-run platform.
Ukraine is widely expected to launch a counteroffensive this spring in which it would use the money and weapons donated by its Western allies to try to drive Russian forces out of occupied land. Some 14 months into the war, the artists — whose families are not in Ukraine — say things are still tense.
Kenny says that everybody has been able to put their feet on the ground where they feel most comfortable. The tension is still there. Russia still has the ability to send missiles.
Kenny, who moved to Ukranian to study, decided to continue the good thing that was happening with the duo, even though he wasn’t intending to stay there. He does not regret the decision to stay and does not intend to move anywhere else.
He calls Ukraine a place of unity and diversity — before the war people would come from different countries to study and work, now others are showing up to join the fight.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February last year, martial law meant that Hutsuliak couldn’t leave, while Kehinde, a Nigerian citizen originally from Lagos, could. His mother, panicked, called him on the morning Russia started bombing Ukrainian cities and urged him to get out.
“When I saw these videos, I saw people with strength, staying solid even in the most terrible conditions,” he added. Soon afterward, the pair wrote the track with lyrics seemingly aimed at invading Russians.
The Hutsuliak-Kehinde meeting in Kyiv: “Mean-Field as a Window to Exit from the Cold War”
As Hutsuliak and Kehinde sat down for an interview at a hip restaurant in central Kyiv called Honey, they apologized for having had to delay the meeting by a day, explaining that they had some urgent business: securing the paperwork that men of fighting age need to exit the country so they could travel to Liverpool.
