EMINA JAHOVIC

Emina Jahovic recently also known as just Emina is a Serbian singer-songwriter, actress and businesswoman. Arguably one of the most popular pop performers in the Slavic-speaking territories in the Balkans, she has been referred to as “Pop Princess”.

Emina Jahovic was born on 15 January 1982 in Novi Pazar. She started attending music school during middle school and took theatre lessons in high school. Jahovic received a bachelor’s degree in management from the Braca Karic University in Belgrade.

She began her career by competing at regional music festivals and has won at the youth festival “Zlatna staza” in Montenegro with “Samo ti, moja muziko”. Emina then rose to prominence upon her debut album “Tacka” in 2002, which was released under Dino Merlin’s record label. Jahovic in 2004 joined pop-rock band Hari Mata Hari on their tour across Bosnia and Herzegovina and North America, performing for Yugoslavian diaspora. Her sophomore album, “Radije ranije”, was released through City Records in 2005. It saw significant success with hit-songs such as “Da l’ ona zna”. Same year she was also declared the songwriter of the year at the “Pjesma Mediterana” festival in Budva.

In 2007, Emina collaborated with Serbian duo Flamingosi on “La Gitana”. The single’s accompanying music video was awarded at the “Suncane skale” festival in Montenegro. The following year, she released her first single in English, titled “Exhale”, which was completely produced and recorded in New York City under the production wing of Bojan Dugic, the Recording Academy’s Grammy Awards voting member who worked with such best selling artists as Beyonce, Britney Spears, Jay-Z, and Jennifer Lopez. The maxi single contained remix tracks by DJs, including Elvir Gazic and Levent Gunduz. The tracks “Push It” and “Push It (Remix)” featured Cory Gunz, an American rapper.

On 19 April 2008, the accompanying video for “Exhale” premiered on the MTV Adria show Top 20 which counts down the biggest videos in the localized version of the music and entertainment channel MTV Europe. Emir Khalilzadeh directed the video. Khalilzadeh also directed the music video for Emina’s 2009 song “Pile moje”, which was shot in historical places such as Istanbul High School.

In December 2008, she released her single “Jos ti se nadam”, a duet with the Serbian singer Sasa Kovacevic. The song was first presented at the Serbian Radio Festival in Vrnjacka Banja. Jahović said that she had written the lyrics for “Jos ti se nadam” after she had broken u with Mustafa Sandal for a short time in 2006. However, its music was credited to the influential Greek artist Mihalis Hatzigiannis. The single was re-released later on in Emina’s 2009 album. The music video for the song was shot on several different locations in Serbia and was considered to be one of the most expensive music videos in Serbian music history.

In 2009, as a special guest star, she performed the song “Pile moje” at “Suncane Skale”. Additionally, “Rodjeni sa greskom”, which is a pop song performed by singers Ana Bebic, Milica Majstorovic, and Danijel Pavlovic, was written by Emina Jahovic in Istanbul, in the studio of her pop star husband Mustafa Sandal who is also a music producer.

On 21 May 2009, Emina’s third studio album “Vila” was released through PGP RTS. She dedicated this album to her late grandfather, Adam. The album was recorded in two years and included songs written and composed by Jahovic, except “Ne zaboravi”, a song by Aleksandra Milutinovic who also worked on Emina’s previous albums, and “Zver”, which was co-written and co-produced by Dino Merlin. The track “Ne zaboravi” featured a back-up vocal by the famous Turkish pop singer İzel. The album also featured a duet with Dino Merlin, “Med”, which is known as the only song Merlin ever sang that he had not written by himself. It is also mentioned by Emina that the reason why she chose the name “Vila” for the album is because she thought the title track was one of the best songs she had ever written and that was why she wanted people to pay attention to it.

On 25 October 2009, Emina Jahović held a concert at the Sava Centar in New Belgrade, Serbia. Staged in support of her album Vila and comprising a set list of songs from that and her previous albums, she wore 13 costumes during the event and sang her greatest hits. Some of the guests including Sasa Kovacevic, Jelena Tomasevic, and Sergej Cetkovic joined her on stage for duets. Among the other guests were the Minister of Labour and Social Policy and the close family friend Rasim Ljajic, Mustafa Sandal, Marija Serifovic, Anabela Djogani, Milica Milsa, Zarko Jokanovic, Dragana Mirkovic, Hari Varesanovic, and Mia Borisavljevic.

In 2011, Emina has released two singles, “Gospodine” and “Posle mene”. Both were released by City Records. “Gospodine” was written and composed Emina herself. This song was released as a duet with the famous singer Natasa Bekvalac on International Women’s Day which is marked on 8 March. “Posle mene” was premiered on 22 July. The music video for the song “Posle mene” was shot in the summer of 2011, in Gocek, Fethiye. The video was directed by Milos Nadazdin.

On 29 November 2011, she was named Person of the Year by Hello! Srbija and received the award, designed by Karim Rashid, which is also awarded to 23 other celebrities at the event held in Beli dvor.

The song “Broken” that is recorded by the popular Turkish producer and disc jockey Erdem Kinay with vocals from its co-composer Emina, has been released in March 2012, following Emina’s Valentine’s Day special “Beograd prica” featuring Dzenan Loncarevic, which was published on 14 February 2012. The song was featured on the Erdem Kinay’s album “Proje” and was written by the New York-based Turkish-American singer S. Derin Togar. After monitoring the international record market in 2012, the editors of the Eurodanceweb chose Emina and Erdem Kinay’s work “Broken” as the most interesting dance track for Turkey. The selected Turkish entry “Broken” was then voted by a professional jury of disc jockeys, journalists, producers, radio speakers and webmasters of popular websites and music blogs; yet, Belgium won the 2012 Eurodanceweb. At the 2006 Eurodanceweb Awards, Emina was chosen Bosnia and Herzegovina’s singer of the year, with the song “Ziveo”.

In December 2012, Emina’s second Turkish single and first solo single in Turkish, “Kimse Yok Mu?” was recorded by Dogan Music Company. The song was written and composed by Emina Jahovic and Mustafa Sandal. The lyrics revolve around Emina asking a man to go back to her. The Serbian version, “I da mogu”, which peaked at number one in such Southeast European countries as Bulgaria, was also made available in 2012. Milos Nadazdin directed the accompanying music video. Jahovic is often referred to as the “Turkish J.Lo” since critics noted costume references and artistic similarities to the work of Jennifer Lopez. “I da mogu” is the second best-selling single of Serbia in 2013 and peaked at number two on the “Top 10 singlova” chart of City Records.

During the year 2012, Emina also collaborated with Hamza Haimami, the Moroccan-born dancer, creative director, and choreographer known for his work with Rihanna as well as with artists including Fergie, Katy Perry, Usher, Will.i.am, and the Pussycat Dolls. Jahovic has also worked with Marko Perunicic and Nebojsa Arezina’s songwriting and production team called Atelje Trag Group which has also collaborated with artists such as Jelena Karleusa and Lepa Brena.

On 27 January 2013, a Name the Song contest was held to choose a name for Emina’s soon-to-be-released 2013 single. Over hundreds names were submitted via Facebook and Twitter and the top two were chosen. These names were “U senkama isti” and “Ne plasim se”. Fans were then asked to vote on the name they thought would be best for the song with over 73% of the votes being cast for “U senkama isti” according to poll contest’s results published on 31 January 2013. The song was also written and composed by Emina Jahovic.

On 27 February 2013, Emina won the 3rd Media Awards of OMU for the Best Breakthrough Album. The 3rd Media Awards of OMU were held at the Atatürk Congress and Culture Center in Samsun. It is the first official music award that Emina won in Turkey.

In April 2013, she released her single “Nedostajes”. The song was written and composed by Emina Jahovic herself. The accompanying music video for the song was directed by Vedad Jasarevic. Arranged by Seckin Ozer and produced by Samsun Demir, the Turkish version of the song is known as “Yakı\ismaz”. The lyrics to the song were written by Deniz Erten. Released in May 2013 through Dogan Music Company, “Yakismaz” was Emina’s third single in Turkish language. The lyrics of the pop-flamenco song revolve around the theme of love and grief.

On 4 June 2013, she premiered “Zena zmaj”. The song was composed and written by Emina Jahovic herself. The upcoming album that was set to include “Zena zmaj” was planned to be released by in June 2013. To promote this album, it was scheduled that Jahović would attend the CMC Festival Vodice 2013. She was be the first artist from Serbia to appear as a special guest at the festival that was held on 14–15 June 2013 in Vodice, Croatia. Claiming that Emina is a genuine regional star and a great musical talent, Nikolina Mazalin, the organizer and creative director of the festival, noted that that was actually why Croatia Records decided to promote Emina’s new album in Croatia.

In September 2013, Emina Jahovic was announced as the judge and coach on the first series of X Factor Adria alongside Zeljko Joksimovic, Kristina Kovac and Kiki Lesendric. Also in 2014, she released “Metemorfoza” under City Records, which was sold in 100,000 copies becoming her best-selling album to date.

At the beginning of 2018, Jahovic released her fifth album, titled “Dalje”, through IDJTunes. The album was preceded by the lead single “Limunada” featuring Milica Todorovic in August 2017, which became a summer hit and has accumulated over 75 million views on YouTube.