This time around, Balkan Express makes a stop in Slovenian hip-hop’s… well, not really underground, but not really its mainstream, either. Masayah is an outlier in the small hip-hop community of Slovenia. Not only because her unique dedication to her work but also because she didn’t really start out as an inveterate hip-hop artist.
Masyah
Masayah, who goes by Mia Puhar Rodin in civilian life, comes from a small-town background where divergence from the norm was frowned upon. This has had profound impact on her lyrics, which she derives almost exclusively from her personal experience.
She did not, however, start out as a hip-hop artist. She used to play acoustic guitar and performed at Sea and Sun Melodies Festival, the Slovenian version of San Remo, at the age of sixteen. Her act placed a decent tenth. However, things soon took a turn for the rap.
It was rap and hip-hop culture that provided an emotional home for Masayah. With them, she found tools to channel her feelings and her story, which she struggled to do otherwise. And so she started performing even before she graduated from high school at the top of her class.
Masayah released her first single for her 18th birthday, as a gift to herself and her fans, which by that time there were quite a few already. And three years later – that is to say – last year, she released her debut album, Zavedno.
Depending on whether you’re big on word-plays, Zavedno could be translated either as Forever or Consciously. Slovenian language is funny that way. But more probably than not, Masayah was aiming for both, the mistress of the spoken and written word that she is. And we mean that quite literally, as she released a collection of her poetry even before and independently of her album.
Today, Masayah is a 23-year-old that has her feet planted firmly on the ground, despite her meteoric rise in the hip-hop community. She performs at sold-out venues, her streaming numbers go into the hundreds of thousands and she shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
And that’s all the time we have for today. Check out Masayah on YouTube, Spotify, and wherever you get your music from and Balkan Express will be back next week.
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Balkan Express brings you the latest and/or the greatest in music from the Balkans. On air every Tuesday at 11am on Ara City Radio, it is hosted by Aljaž aka @pengovsky who once did the world a solid and vowed never to sing again in public. Which is how he ended up doing radio.