Kayah

Kayah has explored an array of musical traditions spanning Slavic, gypsy, jazz, soul, pop, and dance idioms. This approach yielded exceptional results, as few musicians from post-Communist Eastern Europe have matched her commercial reach both domestically and internationally. She also ranks among Poland’s most lauded performers, securing the majority of the country’s leading music prizes. The singer/songwriter launched her recording career in 1995 with the jazz- and soul-oriented release Kamien (Stone), which earned strong critical notices and registered solidly on Polish charts. Her singing on that project brought her a Fryderyk Award, the prestigious honor named for Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin. Two years later the pop album Zebra delivered further commercial and critical triumphs, highlighted by the chart entries “Na Jezykach” (On Tongues) and “Supermenka” (Superman Woman). The raven-haired Pole collected numerous distinctions afterward, among them four Fryderyk trophies. In 1999 she joined forces with Serbo-Croatian film-score composer Goran Bregovic. The partnership proved highly fruitful for both Kayah and Polish music at large. Their collaboration produced the aptly named album Kayah i Bregovic (Kayah and Bregovic), which blended traditional Polish, Balkan, and gypsy elements with contemporary production values. Tracks such as “Spij Kochanie Spij” (Sleep My Darling Sleep), “Prawy Do Lewego” (Right to Left), and “To Nie Ptak” (That’s Not a Bird) helped make the record one of Poland’s biggest-selling releases of the decade. The project also found an audience abroad, reaching the Top Ten in Italy—an uncommon achievement for Polish recordings. “To Nie Ptak” later appeared on the international compilation Chill Out in Paris, again a rare occurrence for Polish repertoire. The following year she issued Jaka Ja Kayah (roughly translated as That’s the Kind of Kayah I Am), another strong chart performer in Poland that earned her, among other accolades, a nomination for best local artist at the MTV Music Awards. In 2001 she contributed to projects with Italy’s Cesaria Evora, Polish rock legends T. Love, and Polish rapper Liroy, while simultaneously becoming an ambassador for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).