Olimpia Smajlaj (born November 30, 1995) or professionally recognized as Olimpia (Ancient Greek:Ὀλυμπῐ́ᾱ ) is an Albanian singer, songwriter and TV-hostess from Shkodër, Albania. She is known for her rebel, goth-pop style, as well as her peculiar artistic performances.
Olimpia began performing since her elementary school, singing in school concerts and different plays. As a teenager studying in 28 Nëntori high school, she discovered her passion for Rock, Blues and Metal and decided she wanted to start a band. After a few public appearances in local concerts she was contacted by four other young musicians and they decided to start a progressive rock band named Indigos [1]. The band was officially started on 2012 and remained active till 2016. In four years they managed performing in many local and big concerts both in Albania [2] and Kosovo[3] such as Anibar [4] , NGOM Fest [5], Rock per Rock where they also won the main price as the first Albanian female-fronted rock band to win in 14 years. Although they started with covers of both famous and underground rock bands, very soon they continued working on several original songs. Olimpia was always the lyricist of the songs and she always contributed on the song-writing. While they were on the verge of completing their first album, they had to stop their work because of several confrontations between the band players which resulted in a long hiatus for the band.
However, before officially separating they managed to publish in every international streaming platform their 8th song To Some Nature, through signing with 360M Records [6] (an independent record label). [7]
After finishing high-school, Olimpia continued her bachelor studies in Tirana, graduating with excellent results in Biology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tirana [8]. It was during this time she started her second Rock band called Sore Mountain where she continued creating original music and playing at different events such as Telecom/One [9] Street Party. In the meantime she participated in the annual traditional festival Logu i Bjeshkëve held at summer, where she was also crowned as Miss Bjeshka 2016[10]. While continuing her studies and also looking for a job, she received a job offer in TV Klan [11], one of the main broadcasting televisions in Albania. She soon became the main-singer and episodic actor for the late-night show Xing [12] hosted by the Albanian actor and comedian Ermal Mamaqi [13]. She continued her work on Xing for a year and half until the official termination of this program on September 2019. It was during her performance on this show as the lead vocalist for the Xing Band where she rose to prominence for the Albanian public and attracted fans on a bigger scale. After Xing she received job invitations on a couple of other TV-projects both on Ora News [14] and Top Channel[15] before deciding to focus again on her career, now as a solo artist without a band.
It was during the Covid-19 pandemic that she started publishing different covers on her YouTube channel and experimenting with genres through her cover choices. She published a Sublime’s cover called Doin’ Time [16] that received an overall positive feedback, since it was also accompanied with a music video. This was later followed by two other covers Love & Trust and Toxic, a rock cover for the Britney Spears hit song. Olimpia explains that bringing her own touch to these covers, both instrumentally and visually helped her further distinguish her vision and influences needed for her upcoming original songs and music videos.
Olimpia publishes her first official song called Buzzin [17] on November 30, 2020 and it’s what paved the way to her focus towards a full-time career in music. During her many interviews she gives her perspective on the "condition" of Albanian commercial music and expresses her concern about it. She notices that "The Albanian Music Market needs to be more diverse and inclusive for young artists that dare exploring other genres besides rap and turbo-folk". After Buzzin', it took her seven other months to record, video-shoot and then publish her second single on June 2021, a reggae/dubstep fusion summer tune called BB Wine[18]. She is currently working on her next song that is expected to be released in 2021. In the meantime she is considering a potential career in acting as well as further continuing her TV-career.
- ^ https://www.festivaltickerto.de/kuenstler/sites/13755/indigos/
- ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albania
- ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo
- ^ https://anibar.org/
- ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGOM_Fest
- ^ https://www.360mrecords.com/
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
undefinedwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ http://www.fshn.edu.al/
- ^ https://www.one.al/
- ^ http://limit.al/2018/07/05/historia-e-logut-te-bjeshkeve-si-lindi-dhe-u-kultivua-kjo-tradite-e-malesoreve/
- ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televizioni_Klan
- ^ https://www.dailyxing.com/
- ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermal_Mamaqi
- ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ora_News
- ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Channel
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGxvhDbPKk4
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEaW5TgOh04
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5MWJp8jCtQ