Nico & Vinz

Nico & Vinz

Nico & Vinz are a Norwegian hip-hop and afropop duo , which until 2013 was known under the name Envy . It consists of the Oslo- born musicians Nicolay "Nico" Sereba and Vincent "Vinz" Dery .

Career

Nico Sereba and Vinz Dery were born and raised in Oslo and have Ivorian and Ghanaian roots. The African influence can also be heard in their music. At the age of 17, the two Norwegians joined forces in 2009 under the name Envy . Two years later they took part in the international youth festival Emergenza and won the final at the Taubertal Festival . In the same year they had their first hit in the Norwegian charts with the piece One Song . The video for the song was awarded a Spellemannprisen , the most important Norwegian music prize.

In spring 2012 they released their debut album The Magic Soup and the Bittersweet Faces . It also hit the charts, but only stayed there for a week. A second single from it, Go Loud , did not hit the charts. After that, they went on tour for a long time to increase their popularity and wrote new songs. The big breakthrough came a year later in spring 2013 with the song Am I Wrong . It rose to number two in the charts and was then released in neighboring countries, where it also reached number two in Sweden and Denmark and number five in Finland. Nico & Vinz have been awarded platinum several times . That same year they had another top five hit with In Your Arms . On December 11th, you were one of the performers at the concert on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize . For their success this year they were also honored with a European Border Breakers Award .

At the beginning of 2014, the two musicians renamed themselves Nico & Vinz and signed a contract with the major label Warner Music in order to start a worldwide career beyond the Northern European countries. Her hit Am I Wrong was released in German-speaking countries on February 21, where it climbed into the top 10, in Germany even up to number 3 and reached gold status in Germany in June 2014 . At the beginning of May the song was released in North America and Australia and also reached high chart positions there.

Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US	NO
2011	One song as Envy	-	-	-	-	-	NO37 (1 week) NO	First published: April 27, 2011
2014	Black Star Elephant as Nico & Vinz	-	-	-	-	US45 (6 weeks) US	NO1 (10 weeks) NO	First published: September 16, 2014

EPs

• Cornerstone (2015)
• Elephant in the Room (2017)

Mix tapes

• Dreamworks: Why Not Me (2010)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)						Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US	NO
2011	One Song The Magic Soup and the Bittersweet Faces	-	-	-	-	-	NO19th platinum (2 weeks)NO	First published: June 10, 2011
2013	Am I Wrong Black Star Elephant	DE3 platinum (31 weeks)DE	AT4th gold (27 weeks)AT	CH7th gold (36 weeks)CH	UK1 platinum (40 weeks)UK	US4th × 3 Triple platinum (31 weeks)US	NO2 × 14 × 3 14x platinum + triple platinum (streaming) (24 weeks)NO	First published: April 12, 2013; First published as Envy : January 21, 2014; as Nico & Vinz
	In My Arms Black Star Elephant	-	-	-	UK90 (1 week) UK	US72 (12 weeks) US	NO4th × 3 Triple platinum (17 weeks)NO	First published: October 31, 2013
2014	When the Day Comes Black Star Elephant	-	-	-	-	-	NO9 platinum (8 weeks)NO	First published: September 30, 2014
2015	That's How You Know Cornerstone EP	DE65 * (9 weeks) DE	AT12 * (14 weeks) AT	-	-	-	NO2 × 2 Double platinum (18 weeks)NO	First published: July 17, 2015 First published: February 16, 2016; * HeyHey Remix feat. Kid Ink & Bebe Rexha
	Our Love Cornerstone EP	-	-	-	-	-	NO- gold NO	First published: October 30, 2015
2019	Where I Belong single track	-	-	-	-	-	NO35 (1 week) NO	First published: August 23, 2019 with Hayes

More singles

• Set to Go (2011)
• Go Loud (2012)
• My Melody (2015)
• Fresh Idea (2015)
• Hold It Together (2016)
• Praying to a God (2016)
• Not for Nothing (2016)
• Intrigued (2017)
• Lists (2017)

Guest Posts

• Lift Me Up (with David Guetta & Ladysmith Black Mambazo ; 2014)
• Rivers (with Thomas Jack; 2015)
• Love You Right (with Matoma ; 2015)
• I Wanna Know (with Alesso ; 2016)
• League Of Your Own (with DJ Spinking, French Montana & Velous; 2016)

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Denmark 2013: for the single Am I Wrong 2015: for the single That's How You Know Platinum record  Australia 2014: for the single In Your Arms 2015: for the single That's How You Know  Denmark 2014: for Streaming In Your Arms  Italy 2019: for the single I Wanna Know  Sweden 2013: for the single Am I Wrong 2014: for the single In Your Arms

2 × platinum record  Italy 2014: for the single Am I Wrong  Sweden 2016: for the single I Wanna Know 3 × platinum record  Australia 2014: for the single Am I Wrong  Denmark 2013: for streaming Am I Wrong  Canada 2016: for the single Am I Wrong

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Australia (ARIA)	-	4 × platinum4th	280,000	aria.com.au
Denmark (IFPI)	2 × gold2	4 × platinum4th	45,000	ifpi.dk DK2
Germany (BVMI)	-	platinum1	300,000	musikindustrie.de
Italy (FIMI)	-	3 × platinum3	110,000	fimi.it
Canada (MC)	-	3 × platinum3	240,000	musiccanada.com
Norway (IFPI)	gold1	24 × platinum24	215,000	ifpi.no
Austria (IFPI)	gold1	-	15,000	ifpi.at
Sweden (IFPI)	-	4 × platinum4th	160,000	sverigetopplistan.se
Switzerland (IFPI)	gold1	-	15,000	hitparade.ch
United States (RIAA)	-	3 × platinum3	3,000,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	-	platinum1	600,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	5 × gold5	47 × platinum47

Awards

• Victory at the 2011 Emergenza Young Talent Festival
• Spellemannprisen 2011 for the video for One Song (Director: Jonas Meek Strømman)
• Nomination in the “Song of the Year” category for Am I wrong at the P3 Gull 2013 awards ceremony
• European Border Breakers Award 2014

swell

1. ↑ Envy - Am I Wrong  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Black in Asia, September 3, 2013  
2. ↑ Am I Wrong / Envy in the chart database of hitparade.ch/Hung Medien
3. ↑ Hip-Hopper from Norway ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Fritz / RBB, February 2014 
4. ↑ Envy - Artist Bio - 2013 Nobel Peace Prize Concert ( Memento of the original from February 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 27, 2014 
5. ↑ Winners 2014 - Nico & Vinz ( Memento of the original from April 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , European Border Breakers Awards website, accessed February 27, 2014 
6. ↑ Excellence Rewarded: Norwegian R & B / Hip-Hop Duo Nico & Vinz Inks Deal with Warner Bros. ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , EURweb, February 1, 2014 
7. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US NO
8. ↑ Winner list 2011 ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at the Norwegian Spellemann Prize 
9. ↑ Her er de nominated to P3 Gull . In: NRK P3 . November 1, 2013 ( p3.no [accessed November 27, 2017]).

Web links

Commons : Nico & Vinz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official Homepage (English)
• Nico & Vinz at Warner Music
• Norway Music (English)