Who Is Monatik?
Dmytro Serhiiovych Monatyk, known professionally as Monatik, stylised in all capitals, is a Ukrainian singer, songwriter, dancer and composer who has become one of the defining pop artists of modern Ukraine. Born on 1 April 1986 in Lutsk, in Volyn Oblast, he has been active as a performer since 2009, and his solo career, which began in earnest in 2011, has taken him from breakdance crews and backing-dancer jobs to stadium shows, television coaching roles and the opening performance of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kyiv. His music blends pop, rhythm and blues, funk and electronic dance music, and it is built around movement: Monatik is a dancer first in his artistic biography, and his songs, videos and stage shows are choreographed as completely as they are sung. That combination has made him unusual in Ukrainian pop, where singers and dancers have often been separate professions. He writes for himself and for others, he produces and composes, and he has built a long career without depending on a single hit, a single television show or a single style. For audiences outside Ukraine, he is most easily recognised as the performer who opened the first semi-final of Eurovision 2017 with Spinning, the English version of his hit Kruzhit. For audiences inside Ukraine, he is something larger: a hitmaker whose songs have soundtracked weddings, workouts, radio playlists and stadium concerts for more than a decade, and a television personality whose coaching work has introduced him to a younger generation. His story is also a story about persistence, because his path to fame was slow, indirect and full of auditions that did not lead where he expected. The images in this article are AI-generated illustrations, labelled as such. Source: Wikipedia records that Monatik, born Dmytro Serhiiovych Monatyk on 1 April 1986 in Lutsk, opened the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 on 9 May.
Early Life and Dance in Lutsk
Monatik was born in Lutsk, a city in western Ukraine, on 1 April 1986, and grew up in an ordinary family. His father worked at a factory assembling aircraft engines and also produced foam rubber, while his mother worked as a secretary at the city executive committee, and his parents later started their own business. Nothing in that background pointed directly to a pop career, and his first artistic love was not singing but dance. As a young person in Lutsk he happened to see a breakdance mini-show in the city centre, an encounter that, in his own later accounts, sparked a lasting fascination with movement. From 2000 to 2006 he was a member of the Lutsk breakdance group DBS Crew, which became the best b-boy group in western Ukraine. Breakdance gave him more than steps. It gave him stage confidence, physical discipline, a sense of rhythm as a full-body practice, and a community of young performers who took popular culture seriously. It also taught him how to compete and how to perform for a crowd that judges instantly, lessons that would serve him in television auditions and live concerts alike. Alongside dance, he pursued formal education. In 2003 he entered the Law Faculty of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, where he studied in his free time between dancing and learning music, and after finishing university he qualified as a lawyer. He has been open about the fact that he knew from the beginning he would never work in the legal profession, but the degree mattered in a different way: it was a safety net, a sign of seriousness to his family, and a period in which he could keep dancing and making music while deciding what his real career would be.
The Move to Kyiv and the First Breaks
Monatik’s move from Lutsk to Kyiv, and from dance to music, came through a series of auditions that mostly did not go as planned but still changed his life. In 2008 he became a finalist in the audition for the second season of Fabryka Zirok, known in English as Star Factory, but he did not become part of the project. That disappointment turned out to be a turning point, because the singer Natalia Mohylevska, who had noticed him during the process, asked him to work on her ballet for her concert programme Real O. He agreed, moved to Kyiv, and began working as a dancer in her performance team, appearing in music videos and working as a choreographer for some of them. Kyiv in the late 2000s was the centre of the Ukrainian entertainment industry, and being there, working every day with professional singers, dancers and directors, gave him an education no audition could provide. In the same year, 2008, he put together his first music group, Monatique, which played funk and soul and survived through two live concerts in Lutsk, a modest start that nevertheless marked his first attempt to lead a musical project of his own. In 2009 he passed an audition to join D’arts, a dance company, and during the two years that followed he took part in a wide range of events, including the ballet Girl with the Matches in 2010. These were not glamorous years. They involved rented apartments, repeated auditions, life without fame or steady recognition, and the hard work of building a reputation one job at a time. What they gave him, though, was versatility: he could dance, choreograph, appear in videos and write songs, and that combination would soon become his advantage.
Becoming a Songwriter for Others
Before Monatik became famous as a singer in his own right, he became valuable as a songwriter for other artists, and that period explains the craft behind his later hits. His first steps as a composer became noticeable when he presented the song 40 Degrees for Svetlana Loboda in 2012, a track that showed he could write a strong, contemporary pop song for a major star’s voice rather than only for himself. Writing for others is a different discipline from writing for oneself. It requires understanding another singer’s range, image and audience, and delivering a song that fits them while still carrying the writer’s signature. Monatik proved good at it, and the work also gave him income, contacts and credibility inside the industry at a time when his solo career was still forming. His own solo project began in 2011 with the release of TayUletayu, translated as I Flew Away, and early singles including V Luchshem Svete gained popularity online. In 2013 he released several tracks, including Prosti (Forgive), Soundtrack of Today and Dym (Smoke), building a catalogue and a sound before his first album arrived. That slow build mattered. Instead of arriving with one viral hit and no follow-up, Monatik arrived with songs, with writing credits for others, with dance credentials and with stage experience, so that when the breakthrough came, he had the material and the professionalism to sustain it. For listeners discovering him now, this period is worth knowing because it explains why his later albums sound so assured: they were made by someone who had already learned pop songwriting from the inside, writing for stars before writing for himself.
The Debut Album and the Sound of Today
Monatik’s debut solo album, Soundtrack of Today, known in Ukrainian and Russian as S.S.D. (Soundtrack Segodnyashnego Dnya), was released in 2013 and presented during a solo concert in Kyiv in 2014. The album set the template for his solo identity: dynamic, melodic pop with funk and electronic touches, lyrics about movement, feeling and everyday life, and a visual style built around dance. In 2014 he also released the Ukrainian-language song Mozhe, Vzhe Dosyt (Maybe That’s Enough), whose message was a call for an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine in the Donbas, a reminder that his pop career has never been sealed off from the country’s politics. In November 2014 he toured Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Dnipro and Kharkiv with his tour called Now, named after his single of the same name, taking the new material to audiences across the country. At the beginning of 2015 he took part in two successful duets using his own songs: Tyshe (Quieter) with Anna Sedokova, and Mokra (Wet) with Quest Pistols Show, both accompanied by music videos. Duets were a smart strategy for a rising artist, because they put his songs in front of other stars’ audiences while showing his range as a collaborator. The debut album period also established his working method: songs written with attention to rhythm and hook, videos made with the same choreographic care as live shows, and a public image built on energy and positivity rather than controversy. By the end of 2015, Monatik was no longer a promising newcomer. He was a chart artist with an album, a tour, high-profile duets and a growing reputation as a songwriter, and the next album would turn that reputation into stardom.
Zvuchit, Kruzhit and Superstardom
Monatik’s second album, Zvuchit, meaning Sounds, was released on 25 May 2016 and contained 16 tracks. It turned him into a superstar. Songs from the album including Kruzhit (Spinning), Vykhodnoy (Day Off), Vechmost and Kozhdy Raz (Every Time) became defining hits of Ukrainian and Russian-language pop in the mid-2010s, and critics noted that Monatik had fused the positive energy of funk with lyrical depth in a way that felt new for mainstream pop. Kruzhit in particular became his signature song, a track built on a circling, hypnotic rhythm that matched its title and its dance. The album’s success was not only about radio play. It was about stage shows that brought Ukrainian pop production to a new technological level, with choreography, lighting and video working as a single design rather than as decoration. Monatik’s background as a dancer paid off here in full: his concerts were not a singer standing still with a band, but a moving, visual event in which the artist’s body was part of the music. The Zvuchit period also consolidated his position as a hitmaker for a broad audience, from teenagers who knew him from television to adults who knew his songs from radio and weddings. In a pop market where many careers rise and fall with a single season, the consistency of Zvuchit, with multiple hits from one album, marked him as an artist with staying power. It is the album most fans point to when explaining why Monatik matters, and it remains the best entry point for new listeners who want to understand his sound at its peak.
Eurovision 2017 and the World Stage
On 9 May 2017, Monatik performed during the opening of the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kyiv, singing Kruzhit in English as Spinning. The choice was notable. Normally the previous year’s winner opens the first semi-final, but in Kyiv the opening act was Monatik, a local star rather than a competing artist, while the previous winner, Jamala, performed later in the show as an interval act with her winning song 1944 in a new arrangement and her song Zamanila. Monatik’s performance began with a video showing Ukrainian women in traditional costume, fitting the contest’s slogan Celebrate Diversity, before he appeared in a long blue and white traditional-style coat with a dark beanie, joined by seven dancers. The staging combined Ukrainian visual references with his own dance-driven pop style, and it introduced him to a television audience of millions across Europe who might never have heard his name before. Eurovision is often remembered for its competing songs, but its opening and interval acts are watched just as closely, and Monatik’s slot placed him, for one night, at the centre of European popular culture. The performance also reflected his status at home: by 2017 he was established enough to represent Ukrainian pop to the world, yet still current enough that the choice felt like a celebration rather than a tribute. For readers tracing his career, Eurovision 2017 is the moment when a national star became an internationally visible one, and it remains one of the most widely viewed performances of his career.
The Voice Kids, Dancing with the Stars and Television
Alongside his recording career, Monatik became a familiar television figure as a coach and judge, and that work introduced him to audiences who might not have followed his albums. In spring 2017 he became a judge on the Ukrainian Dancing with the Stars, season 2, a role that drew directly on his dance background and gave him a platform to talk about movement, performance and discipline with authority. In the second half of 2017 he took part as a coach in the Ukrainian The Voice Kids, season 4, and Daneliya Tuleshova, who was on Monatik’s team, was crowned winner of the season. Coaching on The Voice Kids is a particular kind of television work: it requires choosing young singers, shaping their performances, and appearing week after week as a mentor rather than only as a performer. Monatik’s success in that role, including a winning contestant, showed that his appeal extended beyond his own songs to his ability to guide others. He had already been described in Eurovision coverage as having coached in the past three seasons of The Voice Kids Ukraine, a sign of how central that role became to his public image. His show Vitamin D, presented in October 2017 at the Palace of Sports in Kyiv, was acknowledged as Best Concert Show at the YUNA music awards and at the TeleTriumph television awards, and it was broadcast on 1+1 on New Year’s Eve. Television, in other words, did not distract from his music career. It amplified it, giving him a weekly presence, a younger audience and a reputation as a mentor, while his concerts continued to grow in scale.
LOVE IT Rhythm, Stadiums and Later Albums
Monatik’s third major album phase began with LOVE IT Rhythm, released in 2019, an album that became an anthem of inner freedom and love for movement and was named Album of the Year at both the YUNA and M1 Music Awards. The tour supporting the album drew tens of thousands of fans across Ukraine, Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic, showing that his audience extended well beyond Ukraine’s borders. The scale of his live career reached a historic point with his Vitamin D tour, which culminated in a sold-out show at Kyiv’s NSC Olimpiyskiy stadium, described as the first solo concert of such scale in Ukrainian history, with a reported 60,000 spectators, a live orchestra, dozens of dancers, visual installations and video mapping. Stadium shows are a test of a pop artist’s drawing power, and Monatik passed it as a solo Ukrainian-language and Russian-language pop act, not as part of a group or a festival bill. Later work continued that momentum. A live album, LOVE IT Ritm: Olimpiyskiy (Live), followed in 2020, and his later studio work includes ART Oborona, published in 2022, with songs including Shkoda, Listopad and Zdravstvui, Mama, and the album Vichno Tantsiuyucha Liudyna (Eternally Dancing Person), from which well-known songs include A Shcho?, Kozhny Raz, Liudy, Kameni, Sylno and Nazavzhdy. High-profile duets from this later period include Vymolyv with Jerry Heil and Yevhen Khmara, 127 with KOLA, In Yan with Roxolana and Pro Tebe with Kazka. Taken together, the later albums show an artist who has not repeated the Zvuchit formula but has kept its energy while adding new collaborators and new themes.
Style, Influence and What Comes Next
Monatik’s musical style is best described as pop with strong elements of rhythm and blues, funk, soul and electronic dance music, and it is defined as much by movement as by sound. His songs are built to be danced to, his videos are choreographed as carefully as his concerts, and his stage shows treat lighting, video and dance as equal partners to the voice. That philosophy, which he has sometimes expressed as a love of rhythm itself, sets him apart from singers who treat performance as an afterthought. His influence on Ukrainian pop is practical rather than theoretical: he showed that a Ukrainian solo artist could build a career on dance-driven staging, on writing for others as well as for himself, and on television coaching alongside recording, and he showed that a stadium audience could be built without abandoning Ukrainian-language material. He has won numerous music awards, including more than 15 YUNA Awards across categories from Best Album to Best Concert Show, according to concert and industry listings, a tally that reflects both his longevity and his range. His personal life, as publicly documented, includes his marriage to Iryna Demicheva, with whom he has children. For new listeners, the route into Monatik is simple. Start with Kruzhit and the Zvuchit album, watch the Eurovision 2017 opening performance, then move to LOVE IT Rhythm and the later duets, and the arc of a dancer from Lutsk who became one of Ukraine’s biggest pop stars will be clear, in sound and in movement, from beginning to present.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Monatik’s real name and when was he born?
Monatik was born Dmytro Serhiiovych Monatyk on 1 April 1986 in Lutsk, Ukraine.
How did Monatik start his career?
He started as a breakdancer with the Lutsk group DBS Crew from 2000 to 2006, studied law, moved to Kyiv after working with Natalia Mohylevska, and began his solo music career in 2011.
What are Monatik’s most famous songs?
His signature songs include Kruzhit (Spinning), Vykhodnoy, Kozhdy Raz, and later tracks such as A Shcho?, Sylno and Nazavzhdy, along with duets with Jerry Heil, KOLA, Roxolana and Kazka.
Did Monatik perform at Eurovision?
Yes. He opened the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kyiv on 9 May 2017, singing Spinning, the English version of Kruzhit.
Was Monatik a coach on The Voice Kids?
Yes. He coached on the Ukrainian The Voice Kids, and his team member Daneliya Tuleshova won season 4 in 2017.
What are Monatik’s main albums?
His albums include Soundtrack of Today (2013), Zvuchit (2016, 16 tracks), LOVE IT Rhythm (2019), ART Oborona (2022) and Vichno Tantsiuyucha Liudyna.
Is Monatik also a songwriter for other artists?
Yes. He wrote for other stars before and alongside his solo career, including 40 Degrees for Svetlana Loboda in 2012.