Singer and composer Dato: Biography in a nutshell
Singer and Composer, Dato, is a person of culture and peace.
He sings in many different languages including English, Russian, Georgian, Turkish, Armenian, and Ukrainian.
Dato writes all of his own music.
Born in Tbilisi (Georgia). Performed in various music groups when being a child. Created a band called ‘Flash’,
which was very popular in Georgia in early 90-ies, with his college mates. Later Dato sang with a cult band ‘Sahe’.
Went solo in 2000, performing songs in very different genres such as soul, disco, euro dance, reggae, latino, world music.
Sings in 6 different languages. Can play almost all musical instruments, except winds.
Dato’s solo performances in Tbilisi Palace of Sports set records in ticket sales.
Released his first album intriguingly titled ‘I want you to want this’ in 2002, followed by the second one – ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ in 2003.
Released his first and so far the only Russian album in the end of 2005 on ‘Gramophone music’. It included 16 songs and two videos – «Forgive Me’ and ‘Sand Dream’.
All Dato’s records are available on iTunes.
Awards and achievements.
- 'Slavyansky Bazar' (Slav Bazaar) festival 2000 (Kiev) — Grand Prize
- Black Music club festival (Moscow 2001) – Grand Prize
- Voice of the Asia festival (Almaty, 2001) – Public's Choice prize
- 'Best of the Best' (Russian professional award) (Moscow, 2007)
- Big Apple Music Awards (New York 2009) – 'Best music video' and 'Best European artist' awards.
- 'God of the Airwaves' award, category 'most versatile russian artist', (Moscow 2010)
As a member of 'Sahe' Dato jammed with American rap-singer Coolio and 'Manhattan Transfer' after their performances in Tbilisi and recorded a song with 'Poetry'n'motion' (USA).
Dato has been voted 'Singer of the Year' in Georgia several times.
The video 'Sand Dream' set to Dato's song 'Makhindgi Var' filmed by 'Paranoia Film' won the award of the 15th Moscow International Advertisement festival,
took part in the out-of-competition programmes of ' Cannes' lions' festival, New York Film and video festival, Short Film festival Clermont-Ferraud and Vinterfestivalen in Scandinavia.
In Russia the video was presented on 'Rossija' state channel and in 'Best music videos of the world' programme on RenTV.
Dato also closed the 18th Russian open cinema festival 'Kinotavr' -2007, performing 'Makhindgi Var', which was broadcast live on CTC TV (Russia).
Music Video 'Sand Dream' to 'Makhindgi Var' song was one of the first ones in the world using the unique technology of drawing in the sand.
Many music critics in CIS countries acknowledged the video as the most sensational in 2005.
Performances on TV:
Dato has regularly been invited as the main guest to popular shows on different Russian channels
Broadcasts:
Dato's songs and videos are on many music radios and TV channels' playlists.
2006:
In 2006 Dato records 'Janaya' together with Russian hip-hop singer Ligalize.
'Sever Production' made a video for the song in October 2006 and it was presented on MTV Russia on 1 January 2007.
'Janaya' was used in the soundtrack for 'Club', an MTV series and a live version was also filmed for it.
The song also featured in commercials for a new service from one of the biggest Russian mobile operators.
2007:
'Ona' ('She') video was filmed in Sweden at the invitation of 'Power House', a Swedish Tv academy.
The filming was done on an uninhibited island, in an underground town and a studio; on the last shooting day E-4, one of the main European motorways, was closed for 2 days for filming purposes.
Swedish media covered the filming extensively.
2008:
In 2008 Dato starts to try his hand in promoting. Thanks to his and Gela Gogokhia's efforts the name of 'Basic Element', a Swedish dance band, became widely known is CIS countries.
Dato opens his recording studio Art Land. The singer's company of the same name secures an exclusive deal with the biggest internet store Itunes and offers records from Transcaucasian countries to it.
Dato begins recording dance tracks. The first one of this kind, Deja Vu, appeared in the playlists of the trendiest radio stations of Moscow in the beginning of January 2008.
The song stormed the charts and Dato's team decided to make a video for it, which was filmed in Stockholm.
A group of experienced clip makers, having worked with different European artists, was involved in making the video.
The video was made in three languages – Georgian, Russian and English and was presented on mail.ru, one of the biggest search engines in Russian internet, on April 4 2009.
The Russian version made it into top 3 dance tracks of the year on many radio stations in Russia
Dato was invited several times to perform on main large-scale dance fests in Russia.
In 2009 Dato was awarded with Big Apple Music Award in America.
Dato represented two countries — Georgia and Russia — in the ceremony and received two awards:
'best music video' for «Sand Dream» and 'best European artist' according to Big Apple Music Awards Academy.
On November 15 2009 Big Apple Music Awards ceremony took place in Manhattan Centre, New York.
Awards in 22 nominations were given during a two-hour-long ceremony to the best musicians, according to Big Apple Music Awards Academy.
0n July 18 2009 Dato became the first Russian artist whose program for the trendy Apple iPhone gadgets was available in Apple Store.
2009:
Having achieved success with 'Deja Vu', Dato records a second 'euro dance' track in two languages,
'Cherno-belaya noch' in Russian and 'Flashing Lights' in English.
The song was finalised in a Stockholm studio and the track was dutifully included into playlists on many biggest and most fashionable radio stations in Russia and CIS countries.
The video for the song was made by 'Bridge media' using footage from Dato's live performances. Dato sang the song on the biggest Russian school-leavers' ball in Concert hall 'Rossija' in 2010.
2010:
In the middle of summer 2010 Dato released another dance track.
The producers of well-known Swedish acts 'Basic Element' and In-Grid worked with Dato, who habitually penned the music, on recording the song.
Art Land studio produced the track; the video for it was made in Sweden again.
Constantin Cherepkov, who worked on 'Janaya' video with Dato, and Levan Cikura of 'Deja Vu' fame directed the video.
The cameraman's duties were given to Joshua Reis, who worked on videos of Kanye West, Snoop Dog, John Legend, Soulja Boy, Seal and many other performers.
Therese Fischer, a model with Ford Models agency (USA) starred in the video, presented on Rutube (Russian answer to Youtube) on September 29 2010.
Dato is currently an actively touring performer and is also busy preparing the long-awaited album whose release dates will be known shortly.
Dato's official web page is www.dato.ru.
Sincerely yours,
Gela Gogokhia (producer) gela@dato.ru phone: + 7 9262113292
Anna Bragina (press representative) anna@dato.ru phone: +7 9037236013
