about

Tamara Kezz is a singer, producer, live music performer and a DJ from Serbia, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

She is one of the most fascinating musicians from Serbia, and the first artist from that country, to  perform at one of the biggest music festivals on the planet, the Glastonbury Festival, where she played twice during the summer of 2023. 

Tamara Topalovic has been releasing music under the alias Kezz since 2014, and since 2018 she has started to perform intensively in electronic music clubs, presenting her specific hybrid of live and DJ set. This experience led her to a deep exploration of the electronic music world, which inspired her to develop a unique live set. Last year she had the premier at the legendary EXIT Dance Arena, when she opened the night for Monolink, Satori and Stephan Bodzin. This year she got the opportunity to develop her production and live set under the mentorship of the famous electronic music producer and live performer Mathew Jonson at the Freedom Engine Academy.

She is playing versatile music styles and different types of gigs. Her music is a free form that constantly changes, from the performance to the sound itself. At Kezz’s concerts, she is playing solo with her voice, loop machine, synthesizer, sampler and acoustic instruments. Her musical expression is recognizable by a unique merging of a contemporary, electro-organic sound and stylized singing with a hint of traditional Balkan melodies, but also for her very emotional interpretation and powerful energy.

Another form of her performance is an already mentioned hybrid of live and DJing, where she mixes her own production, mesmerizing live singing and improvisation on a loop machine, with electronic and various music styles. This type of Kezz’s performances became popular after the series of All night long parties at the legendary Boat 20/44, and gigs at the club Half in Belgrade.

Kezz is founded in 2014, when she released the first single „Moma“ (Maiden), which was shortlisted (out of three) on a competition organized by World Music Network from London. In 2017 she released the first studio album “Kezz”. 

Her current live set calls people to dance, surprising with unexpected twists, such as singing traditional themes interwoven with electronics, or emotionally playing melodica over a deep undulating bass line. Using her voice she creates imaginary spaces in which she reminds the audience of what they didn’t even know they had forgotten.

So far, she has released 2 EP releases, 3 studio albums and more than 20 singles on compilations and in collaboration with other musicians. With her sister Tijana, she started the record label Pola / Пола and they recently released the first vinyl Tijamara – Owl Dance. Her 3rd album “Elektroizvorika”, which is completely dedicated to traditional music of the Balkans, is released by the end of December 2022. 

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Tamara started public performing at an early age: in her fifth year she started acting in a local Art Theater in her hometown Kikinda, at the age of 9 she had her first singing musical performance. After developing her singing and piano skills in music schools, she started playing in a different music projects. 

She is one of the composers of original score for the experimental film “Vernae” by Ethan Folk, an audiovisual artist from Seattle. In September 2017, “Vernae” took the prize for the best music composition at the Local Sightings Film Festival – Northwest Film Forum in Seattle.

In the last years, she is working as a music composer and performer at the project “Beisfjord Remembrance” in Norway and Macedonia. She is also composing music for a theater, exhibitions, performances, etc. and she was also curating music show Dirty podcast at RadioAparat, dedicated to underground electronic music. 

During the past years, she has performed solo or within different music projects, in cities across Serbia and the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Norway and UK. Under the alias Kezz, she had more than 200 performances until now.

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