Gaitana

Gaitana (2006)

Gaitana ( Ukrainian Гайтана , transcribed Hajtana , actually Hajta-Lurdes Essami , ukr: Гайта-Лурдес Ессамі ; born September 29, 1979 in Kiev ) is a Ukrainian pop singer . She is the daughter of a Congolese and a Ukrainian.

At the age of five Gaitana moved with her parents to the Congo, and when she was ten, she returned to Kiev with her mother.

As a child she competed in table tennis before she put a sporting career behind music as a teenager. She tried her hand at different styles of music and was a singer in various bands before she became successful with her own mix of styles. After a contract with the Ukrainian record label Lavinia , her first album, which was released in 2003, was very popular. She composes her mostly Ukrainian-language songs herself.

In the Ukrainian preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 , she prevailed against 21 competitors. With the pop song Be My Guest , she survived the semi-finals in Baku on May 24th and reached 15th place for her home country in the ESC final two days later.

Discography

Play media file

Gaitana - "Біль мене не лякає" (2016, CC-BY)

Albums

• 2003: О тебе
• 2005: Слідом за тобою
• 2007: Капли дождя
• 2008: Кукабарра
• 2008: Тайные желания
• 2010: Только сегодня

Singles

• 2006: Два вікна
• 2007: Шаленій
• 2009: Нещодавно
• 2012: Be My Guest

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gaitana Going Strong Ukraine's Soulful Singer Talks whatson-kiev.com, approx. 2008

Web links

Commons : Gaitana  - collection of images

• Homepage
• Ukraine: Gaitana at eurovision.de
• Gaitana at Discogs (English)