Just
like all the other human beings, at first I was only a desire
in my mom and dad’s heads. I was born in Skopje in a time when
sonograms were still a fiction, but I guess mom and dad already
knew I would turn out to be a girl, so I had had my name before
I was born. Now I have the most beautiful, and at the same time,
the most terrifying name because of Hitchock – Rebeka.
I discovered music
with the help of my father, and one of my first LPs was “The
Wall”. As time was passing by, I realized I can’t live without
music, as well as without love. I dreamed of many things then,
the world seemed enormous and pink in color, just as it seems
to any other kid. My parents say I never was a kid, since my childhood
days my life was extraordinary. Besides my engagements in the
media, I was continually contacting people from the world of music,
film business, journalism, as both of my parents worked in the
National Television MRTV.
Since
my seventh year I liked being photographed and filmed. My first
public appearances in front of the camera happened in RTS (now:
MRTV), in the TV Dictionary – children show, and in the next six
years I was a member of the Children Drama Studio of the Macedonian
Radio – Children Radio Drama. I recorded many radio shows, acted
in some of them, and during the whole time I listened and gained
knowledge.
The first song I
performed publicly on TV was “Nedopirliv” (“Untouchable”),
the band was called Rebeka, and the leader of the band
was Duke Bojadziev. At the time – 1987 – the band “Mizar” was
very popular, and one of our few live performances happened exactly
as a fore-band to their concert. The Rebeka band existed for a
short time, for about a year.
A
song that followed was “Sto Mi Napravi” (“What You Did
to Me”) in 1992, and it was a big hit, after which there was a
break, when I started my journalism studies. When I was a child
I thought journalists are people who sell newspapers, but as time
passed, I realized it’s better to be an honest newspaper retailer,
than a dishonest journalist. I experienced journalism and TV presentation
in several occurrences and in different versions (1990 in the
TV quiz “Hallo, Magic” on the MRTV, 1993 I wrote articles for
Pulsiranja, 1996 on Channel 3 – TV show on successful women, then
I worked as a radio presenter in Pink, Top FM and Mega Radio).
My big come-back
to music was in 1996, with the song called “Macho”, and the same
year, thanks to MTV, a big dream of mine came true – I sang on
the same stage in Domzale, Ljubljana with, at that instant, the
most famous world music names: Back Street Boys, The Kelly Family,
Gina G, Take That, and from the ex-YU republics: Parni Valjak,
Anja Rupel etc.
The same summer,
because of this participation of mine, the festival “Suncane skale”
got the epithet “international”, after which I took part in many
RTS shows. That year “Macho” broke all the records on the Macedonian
music top lists, staying No 1 for whole 30 weeks, also appearing
on the top lists in Ljubljana and Belgrade.
1996
was a year when the new sound was being set up in this region.
It was extremely difficult to work, there were no sponsors, simply,
no one believed something serious would be done in this field.
Still, the fever was launched, led by Darko Dimitrov as a composer,
and me as a performer. My team firmly believed quality standards
would be established, which would gain interest with many other
talents to walk our way – and that was exactly what was happening.
The next year, 1997,
a few new songs were released. “Sakam Nesto Zesko” (“Hot Stuff”)
is a remake of the famous Dona Summer’s hit, another fever on
the top lists, and many performances. “Ecstasy”, the composition
of Vlatce Kiborg, sang in English in lack of the universal erotic
string of the Macedonian language, was released the same year
and found its place on the frequency of 103 Radio.
The first fever
began in the summer 1998 with “Obidi Se” (“Try”), the title track
of the same-named album, a master-piece of Darko Dimitrov, with
the lyrics of Princ. In collaboration with Dejan Milicevic the
music video was produced, and caused a revolution in the videos
in Macedonia. Many performances in the discos throughout the country,
and also a greater motive to keep on forward.
On
Makfest 1998 I performed “Vo Iscekuvanje” (“In Expectation”),
which was awarded best lyrics (Svetlana wrote fantastic lyrics).
After this it was about a time for the long-expected album to
be released. The promotion of it occurred on 21st December 1998,
and after a few months the multimedia CD edition appeared, on
which I am very proud.
During 1999 many
beautiful things happened: the music videos for “Fantazija” (“Fantasy”)
and “Pokazi mi” (“Show Me”) were made, the fever on the top lists
continued, the album was awarded best debi-album of the year,
and the song “Try” was definitely the most frequent song on the
radio stations. All in all, the album “Try” reached the zenith
I look forward to achieve with the new album issued the last autumn.
From 9 tracks on the album, 7 reached the 1st place on the top
lists. “Fantasy” was sang in Turkish also, there’s a video version
in Turkish, and I performed it at the Final night of the Miss
Globe manifestation in Istanbul, and at the festival in Ajvalik,
where one of the biggest Turkish music stars Hulija Avsar performed
the same night. That year I had my first concert-guest performance
at one of the biggest stars from the ex-YU republics, Oliver Dragojevic.
The message was conveyed in a duet: “Vjeruj u Ljubav” (“Believe
in Love”). The children series “Nase Maalo” (“Our Neighborhood”)
followed, where I had a role of a singer, but with a small acting
part, as well. Singing the song for this series together with
Esma and Erzana was a great pleasure for me.
THE BIG TURNING
POINT
The year 2000 was
a year when lots of new singers appeared, with many wonderful
songs, but many low quality ones as well. I didn’t haste to release
a new album immediately; I needed some time off, also a time to
decide whether to continue the pop-dance style, which is my favorite,
or to enter a new edition for some time. My team decided it’s
better to start with a new sound, which would cover different
audience tastes.
The experiment set
off with “Edno” (“One”), an urban-rock accomplishment, gripped
by the audience straight away. I wouldn’t talk about the adventures
during the shooting of the video for this song, because there’s
plenty to write. The Budva 2000 festival came like a vacation
to me after that.
The tour with Macedonian
Telecommunications followed, the greatest music happening in Macedonia
ever, and the mini tour in Australia together with Tose Proeski,
Karolina, Andrijana, Vojo Stojanovski and Vaska Ilieva.
“Nesto
Ubavo” (“Something Nice”) is a song I have worked on longest
so far. Garo and Diki Tavitjan made a fantastic arrangement, and
time came for the shooting of the video. We managed to complete
the financial plan with a great help of my friends Dragan and
Vesna. The shooting lasted for 5 days with a large team, the montage
took a long time, and the result was total disappointment in the
professionalism of Ivo, Izi and Igor. The whole budget was spent
on gas, additional cast and other irrelevant stuff, the video
seemed OK, but it didn’t correspond to the song, even though the
scenario was terrific. The author of the song Igor Dzambazov,
my team and Bane agreed that a new video should be made, and the
outcome of this decision can still be seen on the TV channels.
By the end of June
2001 I received an invitation to take part in the music festival
in Zrenjanin, from the organizers - the Banjanin brothers. Zrenjanin
isn’t really a tourist resort, but the list of international participants
was a huge challenge to take part. I didn’t regret my going to
this festival, taking part with the song “Edno” (“One”). I got
to the finals without any trouble, together with the other Macedonian
participants – Karolina and Ilija Psaltirov.
While I was there,
I was invited to the festival Korcula 2001 (August) and to the
Miss Bikini Malta (September), but these engagements were canceled
for some other time because of a personal tragedy of a member
of my managing team.
“Ne Sakam da
Znam” (“I Don’t Want to Know”) was the next step. Darko made
a fantastic song, we arranged everything with Dejan Milicevic’s
team, and we made the video on Ada Bojana. It was issued in November,
and right afterwards I traveled to Australia for a 15-day music
tour (Sydney, Melbourne and Perth). The concerts were very well
inhabited (13-14.000 people). My journey continued to Istanbul
where I took part in the manifestation Model of the Universe,
as the only foreign singer. I performed two songs from my repertoire
– “Nebo Sinilo” (“Blue Skies”) and “Ne Sakam da Znam” (“I Don’t
Want to Know”), and in addition I sang “Zajdi, zajdi”. I think
I represented my country in a good manner. After that I was a
guest in several show programs, by then having received the invitation
to participate on the occasion of Miss Internet 2002 in the tourist
resort Cesme in Turkey for the beginning of July.
I promoted my new
album on 24th December, a day when the largest snow flurry for
the last 30 years occurred in Skopje. But this didn’t make a 500
dear guests of mine hesitate whether to turn up.
The first single
of the album “Drugata Strana na Ljubovta” (“The Other Side of
Love”) had its video in March 2002, after which I took part in
several Serbian TV shows (on Pink TV, BKTV). In May the second
single video “Do Sledniot Pat” (“Till the Next Time”) was issued,
directed by Dejan Milicevic and helped by TOYOTA. “Nebo Sinilo”
(“Blue Skies”) was the third video edition in 2002 shot on the
Millennium Cross on Vodno, issued in September. With a huge help
of Oriflame I had my video for “Mi Treba Samo Ljubov” (“All I
Need is Love”), manufactured by 3D in January 2003.
What is new?
Most of Rebeka's video spots are based on her scenario. Even, in the video spot for the song Od drugata strana na ljubovta she appears as a director, together with Milan Risteski.
In April 2004 started a campaign of a Publishing house Tabernakul for the purposes of which 3 advertising videos. For 2 of them Rebeka did the scenario.
The same month she became a columnist. Starting April's issue a collaboration started between Rebeka and this magazine, and the column is called Rebeka's phenomena.
The summer of 2004 brought the single Summertime and the video. The first week after releasing the single became No 1 at the charts in Macedonia and stayed on the top for whole 2 months.
From November 2004 till June 2005 Rebeka has been focused on producing the TV show Poinakva (Different). She was the author, speaker and the producer.
In November 2004 the single Li DuDu produced with D’Daltones was released, pointing the top of the charts the second week after releasing. After stabilizing relations between the members of D’Daltons, in January 2005 the video of Li DuDu was released.
In December 2004 Rebeka went to Slovenia to record the duet with the Slovenian artist Gianni Riavec. The song is named Peace and love tale. During her stay, she was special gust star in several TV shows, had many interweaves and started promoting the song and the Foundation White Dove. White Dove has been founded by Gianni Riavec, who is also composer of Peace and Love Tale, and Rebeka became honorary member. In February, on St. Valentine’s Day, they made concert in Ljubljana, at the Philharmonic Hall. Ovations form the audience were sincere, at the beginning the song was meant to be hymn of the Foundation, but the interest that audience presented made Rebeka and Gianni to produce video for it. So it was done, the video started to roll on Slovenian and Macedonian TV channels. At the end of August, they made another concert, but this time in Trnovo, near Nova Gorica, at the historical monument form the Second World War. Beside huge problems with the local authorities, the concert was great, there was no place to stand among the audience of 2500 people, it went even directly on the National Slovenian Television. The Eternal Fire of Peace and love, a symbolic statue made to symbolise the ideology of peace started to spread in Slovenia and should be continued further on.
From 12 to 20 July Rebeka was honorary guest star at the biggest music festival among Slavic people, called Slavjanski Bazar, in Vitebsk, Byelorussia. She performed in the Final, in the mean time being member of the jury of the children’s festival.
At the mean time, Rebeka was doing her common job – made a several concerts around Macedonia. In early August, Rebeka received the award Eternal Pop Attraction, awarded by Night With The Stars TV show. She also continued writing columns dealing with male – female sex relations, for the page named Phenomena according to Rebeka, that made second most read column at FORUM.