UzIn Vienna, he performed aside violinist Maimuna and narrowly missed the Grand Final of Eurovision 2015. Now, five years later, Uzari — now going by his full name Yury Nawrocki — is stepping in the spotlight again. This time he has auditioned for Golos, the Russian edition of The Voice.
With a rendition of “Love Runs Out”, Uzari inspired three out of four coaches to turn their chair during his Golos audition. Eurovision 2008 winner Dima Bilan was the only coach to not turn around in time. After the performance had ended, the “Believe” singer explained that he had long considered offering the Eurovision 2015 alum a spot in his team. In the end, he decided to let Yury go as he felt the Belarusian was too much of a sprinter.
Uzari eventually chose the team led by Russian pop legend Leonid Agutin. With his Golos participation, Uzari joins a long list of Eurovision participants who have successfully auditioned for the show. This includes Masha Katz, Aminata and Jean Milimerov.
This follows Uzari’s 2016 participation on the Ukrainian version of The Voice. There, he joined Tina Karol‘s team but was eliminated in the Battle Rounds.
In between his participation in many different television shows, Yury has been getting on as a producer and singer in his home country’s music industry. As a songwriter, he has promoted the Belarusian language in several of his songs.
Although he is known in Belarus for his strong musical track record, Uzari is an unknown artist in Moscow. It is not surprising to see that the Belarusian artist is expanding his borders. After all, Yury has been a long-term open supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Belarus. Back in August, Uzari – alongside other Belarusian Eurovision stars – was featured on “a list of banned artists”.
According to Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian service of RFE/RL, that list first appeared in a pro-governmental Telegram group called “Traitors of the Republic of Belarus”. Although the original source of the list stayed unknown, it nevertheless sparked outrage on Belarusian social media this August as it was yet another tool of intimidation used against artists such as Uzari.
Did you enjoy Uzari’s audition on Golos? Do you think he will make it far on the show? Let us know in the comments below!
It’s entertainment, it’s not a real competition. It’s all rigged. Just because Dima didn’t turn doesn’t mean a thing. They need to ensure that all judges have a decent amount of contestants to coach.
Competition is entertainment. Producers create narratives based on the personal stories given to them by participants to allow viewers to relate to them and invest in their journey over the course of a season, whether those journeys are cut short or have gone the long mile until the very end. I wouldn’t exactly call this “rigging” in the same way that the average Eurofan would describe certain national finals as such but rather it is highly produced (which someone had detailed below).
The Voice Russia really doesn’t hide the fact they autotune the auditions. Even to a non-musically trained ear, it’s so noticeable.
It’s not just Russia, every country’s edition of the show is faked.
We saw some Eurovision artists coming from competitions like The Voice , X Factor etc.before
But i find it a little strange when a Eurovision artist participates shows like this after he/she participated Eurovision.
The Voice includes famous singers deliberately, it is not just for unknowns. It helps with the whole point of the blind audition, where the judges decide only on the voice… The Voice Italy judges didn’t even turn around for a Sanremo winner once.
Was it the female singer from Jalisse? To be fair, she wasn’t good. Her voice was not in shape.
Yeah, Alessandra. She deserved better and should never have gone on.
She probably got a decent appearance fee. I knew a guy who was approached by the producers of X Factor Australia; they wanted him to audition in a group (the other performers he only met on the day) with the intention of not passing to the second round. They paid him to fail, basically. The production needs footage of people failing and most of the time the results of the auditions are predetermined. I have also heard of people who were told by the producers that they were gonna be in the live shows no matter what but that they… Read more »
We saw many Eurovision artists that coming from competitions like The Voice , X Factor etc..
But i find it a little strange when a Eurovision artist participates those shows after he/she participated Eurovision.. Like Uzari , i guess some others did the same
You should definetely check Ireland’s 2017 Brendan Murray leveling himself up while at the X Factor UK after his ESC non-qualifictaion.
back in 2017 he randomly liked 3 of my instagram posts. i like him, good luck uzari
Thought I was the only one who was given likes by him on Instagram lol