Ukraine will know the names of the top achievers in the music industry at the fourth annual YUNA Music Awards. While the award was founded by and receives financial support from Kyiv Post publisher Mohammad Zahoor, the mastermind behind it is Pavlo Shylko.
Shylko, 37, is better known as DJ Pasha, a nickname he picked up when he started working in radio two decades ago. He was 18 then, and didn’t have time to come up with a creative nickname before going on air, so went with the simplest one that came to mind.
Pavlo Shylko (right) and pop singer and producer Potap on stage of YUNA Music Awards on March 15, 2013 in Kyiv. (Courtesy
He is still known by this name, especially in Kyiv’s expatriate community. A Ukrainian who speaks fluent English, Shylko has been hosting expatriate or other events with multilingual audiences for many years, keeping the show moving briskly and the audience entertained.
The Kyiv Post caught up with Shylko in his office a week before the YUNA ceremony. He was late because Svitlana Loboda, a Ukrainian pop star, showed up to discuss her upcoming performance.
Many of Shylko’s friends among stars in the Ukrainian music scene believe he influences who is selected as contest winners. In reality, Shylko doesn’t even know the results until the moment that an envelope with a winner’s name is opened on stage.
“It gives me a hard time when it comes to planning the show,” he says. “But this is the right way to do it.”
The idea to start a Ukrainian music award came to Shylko on a plane in February 2011. He brought the idea to Zahoor, the British citizen and Pakistani native who owns the ISTIL Group. In March 2012, the first YUNA recognized the achievements of 20 years of Ukrainian music.
That’s when the two established the rules that YUNA’s objectivity is based on. The voting is overseen by independent accounting firm Deloitte, the same firm that works the Grammy Awards.
To avoid speculation, it was decided that Zahoor’s wife, pop performer Kamaliya, can never be nominated for YUNA.
Although being a producer and host of YUNA takes a lot of Shylko’s time, it is only one of his many occupations. Until recently he’s been the president and a host at Gala Radio, the same station where he started. The radio was sold to a Dutch investor in January and is changing its name to Radio Yes. He held several jobs as TV host and sports commentator.
To Kyiv expats, Shylko is mostly known as the city’s most popular host. His gigs include hosting the Lions Club’s annual charitable Burns Night, the Eurovision contest in Kyiv in 2005, various Euro 2012 events and other gatherings.
His debut as an English-language host took place at the wedding of expat businessman Robert Koenig in 1999. Almost two decades later, it is easier for him to host an event in English than in Ukrainian.
He vividly remembers his most complicated job – hosting a presentation of the new soccer ball by Adidas for Euro 2012 at Olimpic Stadium. It turned out that the interpreters of the executives from Poland and Spain didn’t understand English, so Shylko faced the need to host the event in English, Polish and Spanish simultaneously.
Not that it’s too hard for him. Shylko has an extraordinary talent for languages. He studied Spanish in college, and learned Polish from his deputy at Gala Radio, a Pole. He also speaks Italian.
As for his English, he learned most of it in school in Zaporizhzhya, where he lived before entering a university in Kyiv. In his college years he was already giving private English lessons and charged two dollars, making some $25 a month – a substantial supplement to a student’s budget in the early 1990s in Kyiv.
He even has a history of authoring English songs. He wrote the lyrics for “Show Me Your Love,” the hit song that brought Tina Karol seventh place at the Eurovision contest in 2006.
Now that his nearly 20-year affair with Gala Radio station has ended, Shylko plans to go back to TV production. He scripted two music TV shows that he wants to sell to Ukrainian TV and abroad. Although the Ukrainian television, he says, is occupied by the TV shows bought from abroad and localized, he is optimistic about selling his shows.
“Someone is making all these shows. Why not becoming that someone?” he says energetically.
It is impossible to not believe in him.
Kyiv Post staff wrifer Olga Rudenko can reached at [email protected]
