Mr. Slan

Mr. Slan (real name Ruslan Maratovich Saliev) was born in Tashkent in 1981. At eight he joined the children's vocal and instrumental ensemble “Iskorka” and from 1994 made his first hip-hop tracks. In 1998, after school, he entered the film and television directing faculty of the Mannon Uygur Tashkent State Institute of Arts.

In 1999 he launched on Radio Sezam the first radio show about rap in Uzbekistan, “Hip-Hop Education”; he later moved it, with “Underground” and “Vulkan”, to Avtoradio Hamroh. From 2001 to 2003 he was the station's music editor.

From 2000 he performed in the rap group Shark Attack, whose albums “Sharks Meal Assortment” (2000) and “The Second Coming” (2002) were released; in 2000 he directed the “Open Air” hip-hop festival. In 2003 he put out a solo album, “5 Steps to the Sun”, online.

At the end of 2003 he moved to Moscow, where he recorded a rap part for Vyacheslav Butusov's album “Biografika”, took part in the SKY project's song “Malchik ishchet mamu”, and wrote the lyrics of four songs on A-Studio's album “Uletayu”. He returned to Uzbekistan in 2006 and worked as a songwriter and producer with Uzbek and Russian artists; his solo albums are “Klony” (2009) and “Monologi” (2011). Since 2018 he has hosted the interview channel “Nalegke” on YouTube.