Mc Erik & Barbara

The collaboration between the composer and rapper Erik Aresta and the female vocalist Barbara Hascakova begun as they met in Erik's previous group Maduar (which most famous hitswere Do It, I Feel Good and Anjel). Their good musicand Barbara's beautiful voice immediately attracted attention of the audience.It was promising perspective that had opened to Maduar. However Erik andBarbara decided to leave Maduar and on 4th March l995 they officially establisheda new formation : MC Erik & Barbara.

Maduar, although without Erik& Barbara, kept its original name consisting of the first letters ofthe group's members (Matyinko, Dulovic, Aresta).

MC Erik a Barbara signed a contract with Polygram for 3 albums tillthe end of 1997 and released their first single I'm free includingthe bonus-track Anjel II. The second single U Can't Stopgot to the highest positions in hitlists of several radio stations. InDecember 1995 MC Erik & Barbara took part in Bratislava Beat Mass inthe Cathedral of St Martin, Bratislava.

Finally, on 4th September the album U Can't Stop was released.It joined the list of the bestsellers and also brought the next hits :a remake of the song Summer Nights from the musical movie Grease,and the only song in Slovak entitled Ked Pride Laska. The videoof Summer nights '95 was shot in Tunis. The song was very popularespecially in Estonia and Namibia. Save The Jungle, released February1996, is the most unusual video they made. Erik and Barbara appear hereas very bored astronauts on their journey through deep space and time.

Exactly half year after the album U Can't Stop first release,its reedition with a new cover and four extra tracks was released : Hideaway,LetThe Party Go On, Anjel II (previously released on the singleI'mFree) and When Love Is Calling (English version of Ked PrideLaska). On 11th March the album (with subtitle '96 Version ) was releasedin whole Europe. Full marketing support was guaranteed by Germany, Belgium,Finland, Switzerland with other countries joining gradually.

This year MC Erik & Barbara took part in the Eurovision Song Contestbut were not chosen to represent Slovakia. Marcel Palonder was chosen instead.On 21st March 1996 they went to Moscow, where they gave two performances.Followed a big tour in Czechia and Slovakia. In May they received the SilverOtto prize.

During the summer, Erik and Barbara went back to recording studio toprepare their new album. A pilot single and video entitled It's your daysaw the light of the world as first. On 29th September, all the work onthe new album was finished and one month later the album named Secondwas officially released. It was followed by a single which was the coverversion of Abba's famous song Dancing Queen. There is another coversong on the album : Good Vibrations originally sung by the BeachBoys. On this album, Barbara presents three songs she composed togetherwith her brother Andrej. Erik's participation on them was reduced to shortrap parts only. One can also hear Erik's solo song I Don't Wanna LoseYou he composed for his girlfriend.

On 16th June 1997 they released a video tape entitled Videos And More,featuring the videos of the singles U Can't Stop, Summer Nights'95, Ke? Pr?de L?ska, Save The Jungle,Anjel II, It's Your Day, Dancing Queen, Never Gonna and Sen.

The release of the album was followed with a concert tour : 10 performances in Czechia in November and December and 10 performances in Slovakia in February 1997. For the first time they were accompanied by a live band. More recently, the group had a great success in Japan so they got an offer to extend the original contract from three to four albums (just for Japan). There was no album scheduled for 1997 because Erik and Barbara were preparing their own solo projects.

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