“We are already tired of rock, hip-hop, and rap has long been sick. Tired of cursing, listening to harsh sounds. But all the same, he is drawn to the usual music, what should I do? – complained in 2018 blogger n3oon on youtube, making an overview of the so-called “no-names”. Among those whom he mentioned with great enthusiasm was a girl from Saratov with the nickname “Mental Affection”, she is also Dasha Shikhanova, and she is now the rapidly gaining popularity of the singer Dora. The blogger said prophetic words over a year ago: “This is not rap or hip-hop, and thank God! A completely new style of performance has already appealed to a large number of listeners, and the girl has a great future.” Now Dora has millions of auditions on official channels, she already performs at big concerts. If you open her social networks, then you have to work hard to break through the thousands of comments that constantly come to her and also write to the girl.
How was a girl from Saratov able to win such a large audience among teenagers and young people, move from Saratov to Moscow, break into the big stage? Does singer dora have a musical background? She obviously sings like a professional, is it really true that she never attended a music school? Who is Yegor Barkhanov, whose name is often mentioned when talking about Dora: her boyfriend, close friend or just a colleague? What's the story with the broken guitar that nearly ended her musical career? The singer's fans are interested in knowing every little thing about their favorite, they bombard her public with questions around the clock. And the girl answers in a very original way: she publishes puzzles and puzzles with these questions on her social networks, and the first person who completes the test gets a nice reward. On the wave of interest in Dasha Shikhanova, you should definitely try to fill in the gaps in her biography and satisfy the burning curiosity of her fans.
Official facts of the biography
- Last name, first name: Shikhanova, Daria;< /li>
- Creative and social media nicknames: Dora, Mental Affection, cute dori, baby dori, mental dora, dora;
- Birthplace: Saratov, Russian Federation;
- Date of birth: November 30, 1999;
- Zodiac sign: Sagittarius; according to the eastern calendar – Yellow Rabbit (element of the year earth); patron planet Jupiter;
- Height and weight: 158 cm, 50 kg;
- Occupation: singer, songwriter;
- Style: cute-rock ;
- Marital status: single, no children.
What is known about the singer's childhood
Her name and surname, indicated above in the official biography data, are genuine, this information is beyond doubt. Blogger n3oon in the story “The Best Noname Musicians!” in a story about her in 2018, he told the public that he himself contacted the girl to clarify her first and last name, as well as the day and year of birth. Daria herself told her fans in more detail in her VKontakte feed: sometimes she herself, probably, cannot withstand the heat of passion and answers some questions. By the way, during one of the dialogues with fans, Daria clarified why her last nickname should be written in small letters and without the first capital: “I hate it when people make a personality cult around their person. And I myself am not going to stand out with something special, to rise above others. That's why my nickname is spelled like this, please keep it in mind – dora. jpg” class=”aligncenter wp-image-1194 size-full” title=”Singer Dora (Daria Shikhanova): biography, personal life, songs” alt=”Singer Dora (Daria Shikhanova): biography, personal life, songs”/>
Yes, Dasha was born in Saratov, but it happened under rather unusual circumstances. As the girl said, her mother was sure that her child would be born no earlier than the first week of December, but life decreed otherwise, and Dasha's mother began giving birth late in the evening of November 30. The girl did not mention in her revelations why the ambulance did not arrive on time. Most likely, as it often happens so far in the Russian outback, the doctors simply could not arrive too quickly: bad roads, lack of doctors, few cars – especially since it was the end of the 90s, the mess then reigned everywhere, and not only in Saratov. So, the birth of Dasha, in the future of the singer dora, happened “in an ordinary Saratov apartment, and not in a hospital,” her words. The birth was taken by … her grandfather, a former pilot (Daria also mentioned this in a post): the man was not a timid ten, judging by his profession, and helped his granddaughter to be born. This amazing fact was even written about later in the Saratov newspapers, according to Dasha.
Now about whether the girl in her earliest childhood had the prerequisites for a future demonstration of unconditional talent. The fact that dora is talented is hard to argue: mediocrity will not be able to write their own singles that will gain a million listens. Again, her words from a dialogue with subscribers on VK: “I started singing very young, and it was not too surprising, because music constantly sounded in our house.” No, her parents were not musicians or music teachers, but they probably loved music in their family, so they turned it on often. Dora confirms this, telling further: “Mom was especially partial to music, she liked pop most of all.” “Why wasn’t the girl immediately taken to a music school?” – some will ask, but it’s worth remembering the date of her birth: the beginning of the 2000s was not very joyful in many Russian families, and it can be assumed that Dasha’s parents simply didn’t have enough money for a music school.
Or maybe there was no music school near her house, and there was no one to drive to the other end of the city – the question of why the little girl did not start attending a music institution remains open. But this is a fact that dora emphasized many times, saying: “I have no musical education at all, I learned to play the guitar and synthesizer myself – such a self-taught person, not familiar with the notes.” But still, Daria's parents, as they say, strained with money, and bought her something when they noticed their daughter often singing along to the music playing in the house. “I sang so often, and, apparently, it’s not bad that the family decided to buy me a truly magical thing that changed my life in a fabulous way.” This subject, which immediately became her favorite, from which it was difficult for the girl to tear off day and night (with the exception of going to school), was home karaoke.
Now the apartment where Dasha Shikhanova lived was no longer filled with the sounds of popular pop tunes of that time, but with her voice: the girl sang her favorite hits with might and main using home karaoke. It is difficult to name specifically what she especially liked then: “The list of my favorite music was unusually“ motley ”: either I listened and sang retro, then abruptly switched to hip-hop, or I could easily listen and sing jazz, and then I took up pop music,” her own words. And she had another hobby in her childhood, to which the future singer dora was distracted with pleasure from home karaoke: these are cartoons, she especially liked Japanese ones. “When a child watches cartoons, it is very helpful. They develop imagination and help to look at the world around us from a different perspective,” Dasha said today.
The beginning of serious music studies, the first steps to fame
So the time has come to tell about where this beautiful and sonorous nickname – dora came from. The girl does not hide the fact that in childhood she was very fond of the cartoon series “Dora the Traveler” (in the Russian version – “Dasha the Traveler”). She even assigns the honorary title of “slipper” to her most active fan, she still loves this cartoon so much. And her fans were always sure that she chose the new nickname (after Mental Affection) exactly “dora” out of love for the heroine of the cute cartoon series. “But no!” – this is what the singer herself says, and explains: “In my childhood, my mother sometimes called me not Dasha, but Dora – probably due to the fact that the cartoon often turned on with us, and this name was well known to my mother. So I decided to take for myself the name that my mother gave me in the second version. jpg” class=”aligncenter wp-image-1196 size-full” title=”Singer Dora (Daria Shikhanova): biography, personal life, songs” alt=”Singer Dora (Daria Shikhanova): biography, personal life, songs”/>
In fact, her nickname is connected with the cartoon Dora the Explorer, albeit indirectly. But at first there was neither Dora nor Mental Affection: there was a girl Dasha, who not only sang other people's songs, but already slowly began to write her own, and tried to perform it in public with a guitar. And now an extremely important moment from the biography of the singer dora will be mentioned – this is a story full of drama about the guitar. Daria then performed with this instrument: the parents again helped their daughter develop her talent and bought her a guitar. Nothing lasts forever, and musical instruments too: at one fine moment, Dasha's guitar “covered itself”, and her mistress was left without an instrument. The grief of the mistress of the broken guitar was so great that she decided to put an end to public performances of songs and give up her passion for music.
Someone prompted her to do what will be discussed below, or she herself decided so – it is not known. It is unlikely the second: Dora is a very shy girl and modest, but the first happened almost certainly. Probably, one of Dasha's friends advised her to announce a fundraiser for a new guitar among friends. This fact really took place – blogger n3oon mentioned it in his story, talking about the singer: “To find out some details of her biography, I had to contact Dasha, and she herself gave me this information.” So, Dasha's friends responded to her grief and raised money for a new musical instrument, for which they should say a huge thank you! And again, her friends (as dora herself already wrote on VK) suggested that she create a public page on the social network and start uploading recordings with her songs there.
photo https://vk.com/cutedora
“Consciously, I didn’t want this: friends and girlfriends actually insisted on creating a public in VK, so Mental Affection was born,” a fragment of Daria’s story about herself now. “My Internet career began precisely with the registration of a public under this nickname, then I didn’t even think about Dora,” her words are also. There was a person who appreciated the extraordinary beauty of her voice, his name is Yegor Barkhanov, known to fans under the creative nickname “Egor Nats”. With him, the singer under the pseudonym “Mental Affection” released several very successful features in a short time, and their joint album “I'll Run Away” became her real triumph.
“God, I really admiring the girl's voice! I don't know who she is, but she's incredible!”
“Album and duet – to the very heart, thank you very much to both artists!”
“Throw off at least some- then information about a girl who sings with Yegor! Egor – thanks for the album!”
“She sings so much that it seems that the words are torn out of her soul.”
< p>This is how the fans of Yegor Nats (and already Dasha) wrote in the reviews for their joint album “I'll Run Away”. In addition to the title song of the same name, singles from the collection “Aluminum Asphalt”, “OK” received huge portions of admiration. Immediately, the listeners of this album rushed on the Internet to look for their other joint songs, and the number of listens immediately began to grow for those found.
https://www.instagram.com/mentaldora/
Single “Lied”, for example , in a short time from several thousand scored almost a million plays. An interesting fact: the synopsis for the song states that Mental Affection also performs the guitar part. And again admiring comments rained down, which, it should be noted, are duplicated again and again in addition to the old ones, written more than a year ago.
https://www.instagram.com/mentaldora/
< p>“I remember well how I roared to this song”
“A year and a half ago, everyone in the camp: both counselors and children, listened to her and cried” .
“I danced for the first time under her in the camp for the first time. It seems to be snot, but how they take it for the soul “
“And under it, as I remember now, I kissed the boy for the first time!”
These reviews are all written relatively recently, after Mental Affection turned into a dora singer. Daria's fans listen, it should be noted, not only to her new singles: they constantly find what she sang under the old pseudonym, listen and nostalgic, not forgetting to write admiring comments again and again.
The appearance of the singer dora, way to great fame
“I felt cramped within the framework of what I perform. None of the song genres completely suited me, and I decided to create my own, ”dora said in her VKontakte feed today. The style of “cute rock”, or cut rock, is her own invention, and so far dora has a complete monopoly in this segment of the musical space. “Cute” in English means cute, and the word “rock” is added to this phrase to denote “a pleasant voice in conjunction with overdriven guitars and live drums,” a literal quote from the singer’s story about her invention. Another quote: “I always wanted to find something original, unique mood and sound in music. In cut rock, I myself create the rules, I myself set the style and pace for the further development of this direction.
https://www.instagram.com/mentaldora/
The year 2019, Daria Shikhanova, already dora, decided to start with the release of solo works, and posted the album “I am not commerce” for the fans to judge. Of course, those who had madly liked her songs, performed together with Yegor Nats, immediately began to listen to him! The album “went” so well that it almost immediately hit the top thirty on iTunes, and not only her fans noticed the girl with the collection – critical articles with reviews began to be written about Dora on music sites. For example, on the Freshmus resource, it was said about the singer dora: “Undoubtedly, baby dora is a new, bright name in the sky of Russian urban pop music. Gentle and at the same time piercing songs recorded by the performer make listeners cry: after all, every teenager has at least once experienced what she sings about – youthful suffering, mental self-torture, broken dreams.
Critics also wrote that “in her style, the influence of sophisticated rhythm and blues, emo-rap and wish-house, beloved by young people, is clearly felt.” In fact, this is true: all the mentioned (and not only) areas of music influenced the formation of the young singer's own style – after all, she herself admitted that in her childhood she had a very “variegated” play-list. The album “I am not a commercial” was labeled as an EP, but in fact it did not include two or three songs, as is usually the case with the release of a collection of this format, but as many as six. The official release took place on January 6, 2019, and the success of the collection was so overwhelming that Dora decided to fix it, and in early February she released the track “I don’t swear.”
The songs “Doradura” and “Girlfriends” were even more successful compared to the collection released by her in February. Daria not only began to regularly release new singles on the Internet, she very competently approached the management of her publics, where she constantly “warmed up” interest in herself. Having told that another album will be released soon, she simultaneously stated something intriguing: the exact release time was not indicated, but the singer announced an original competition. She published a crossword puzzle about herself, and the one who completed the crossword puzzle correctly was the first to get access to the album on the Internet. The excitement before the release of the collection flared up so much that her VK account almost collapsed: everyone vied with each other trying to be the first to throw their answers and become happy owners of vip access to the new album.
With regard to social networks, Dora is also interesting in that she tries to communicate with fans as often as possible. If you look at her Instagram and VK, you will notice: she answers almost everyone, and if she asks a question, she herself reacts to almost every answer. PR managers should learn from a very young girl who independently raises her rating in social networks, competently deals with her own advertising. At the same time, she has not a single fake like, not a single fake vote in her accounts – only live fans and active subscribers. Is it any wonder that her new album, “dropped” on the Internet in early November, immediately gained almost a million streams – it was the collection “Younger Sister”.
Simultaneously with the release of this collection, again cleverly drawing attention to itself, dora made several appearances on the “live” stage. But, in fact, this cannot by and large be called attracting attention to herself, because she has already become incredibly famous on the network: her album “Younger Sister” on the music channel was steadily gaining streams and downloads, and this figure quickly grew to a million. With delight, Dora's fans greeted the news that they could see her live at the concert of the “Friendzones” group, which took place on November 4 in St. Petersburg. Her performance in Moscow is about to take place, and in the meantime, her social networks are besieged by fans: dora, as before, maintains the hype around herself, announcing new contests.
https://www.instagram.com/mentaldora/
Daria promises to everyone who will be a subscriber of her official public on VK that she will honestly raffle off several prizes in honor of the release of her album “Younger Sister” (by the way, in the official playlist of the resource, the number of plays has far exceeded one million). Among those who subscribe to her page and repost the latest album, a prize will be drawn in the form of a personal meeting with the singer, and there are no restrictions on the region. “If you live in another city, and not in Moscow, then we will buy you a ticket to Moscow and back,” promises dora. In addition to a personal meeting and communication with the artist, a randomly selected lucky person will receive merchandise from the singer in the form of a T-shirt and a large album with stickers. Four more will be awarded T-shirts and magazines, and another five will receive magazines.
So far, there is no exact date for her solo performance in Moscow, but her fans are looking forward to the performance of their idol in the capital. But in Moscow, she has already performed, together with a rap artist named Mukka: immediately upon returning from St. Petersburg, the girl and the guy sang in several clubs. Dora has no clips yet, and a kind of competition has been announced on her social networks on this topic too: the artist is interested in fans on which track they would like to see the first fully-made video for first. Back in VK, Daria created the Dora Family group, where her fans now actively correspond almost around the clock.
About her personal life
It is known for sure that the girl is not married, she has no children: dora is very popular among fans, and if she had married without much fuss, they would have found out right away and would have reported this sad (for them) fact on the entire internet. Nothing is known about the alleged young man Dasha: at one time she posted sad memes on the theme of love and a tragic breakup on social networks, but no name was specifically mentioned. There are no photos with guys on Instagram and VK.
No, there is a photo with Mukka and Yegor Nats (by the way, they continue to communicate with him often), but these are her colleagues. The cut-rock monopoly's heart seems to be free, which is very inspiring to the male half of her large fan army.
Interesting facts
- The girl herself admitted that it is difficult for her to make new acquaintances: she is not so impudent to get to know everyone left and right. “But I try to fight my shyness! And lately I've made a lot of friends by meeting new people,” she says.
- About her previous nickname, Mental Affection, she did not forget for good. Dora also advises her fans not to forget this pseudonym: “This is my alter ego! Who knows: maybe very soon I'll write a new track precisely from mental affectation! Dasha herself confirmed this many times: despite being busy, she still watches cartoons. More of her words: “When the next episode of Toy Story comes out
- I'll be sitting in the front row with a huge bucket of sweet popcorn!”
- In clothing, dora prefers a bright, fun and comfortable style: her famous multicolor striped sweater impressed fans so much that several of her fans knitted the same one for themselves. It has been noticed that recently the girl often wears things from the brand “The dollar club”: it is quite possible that she already has an advertising contract with the brand, because photos with bags, T-shirts “The dollar club” appear on Dora's Instagram regularly.
- Dasha-dora does not give preference to any particular style, and says about it: “In general, by and large, I don’t like the word “style” itself. I’m much more interested in creating some original mixes myself or even inventing fresh clothing trends.
- She admitted that she suffers from myopia: “I have both eyes – minus three. I don't wear lenses and only wear glasses when absolutely necessary. I do not like to see the world in a full-fledged, bright version, because along with its beauty, its shortcomings become available.
- Cat Vasily, or Vasek (this is how dora often signs photos with a pet) is incredibly popular on her Instagram and VK. The handsome black cat gained popularity after a competitive crossword puzzle published by Daria, where there was a question: “What is the name of my cat?”
- A little more about interesting facts about Dora, obtained from her crossword puzzles. Her favorite juice is carrot, her favorite color is orange, her favorite season is autumn, and her hairstyle, which she considers ideal, is a bob. And her favorite literary hero is Andrei Bolkonsky.
- Daria now lives in Moscow in the Maryino microdistrict: two years ago she came to Moscow to enter a university, and did it. “From the second year I left the institute, almost reaching the exams, because the dream of a great future and the desire to follow her turned out to be stronger,” she wrote on VK.
- So far, the singer has not joined any reputable music label. But she has an assistant in her affairs, or rather, an assistant. On social networks, her fans wrote (the information is not completely accurate) that this girl is Dasha's half-sister by her father.
- A standard question addressed to singers: “Is your latest album a reflection of your life?” – asked her. Answer: “Younger sister” is my world of teenage dreams and experiences. No, these are not random songs, but a whole layer of my life.”
- Her words about inspiration and style of behavior: “Groundhog Day” is definitely not my lifestyle, I hate routine and love everything new. I can go outside, admire someone's cool sneakers and write a song about it. Or be inspired by nature. But the people around me have the most serious influence on my inspiration – their behavior, actions.
