Jelena Rozga (born 23 August 1977) is a Croatian pop, folk, and electropop singer. Born and raised in Split, Croatia, Rozga was a ballet dancer as a child. She rose to fame in 1996, when she became the lead singer of Magazin, a pop band famous in former Yugoslavia. She served as the band's lead singer until 2006, releasing a total of five studio albums. During the ten years, the band released numerous commercially and critically successful singles including "Ginem", "Minut' srca tvog" and "Minus i plus" among others.
In 2006, Rozga launched a solo career with the release of her debut studio album Oprosti Mala (). The album was a major commercial and critical success that established her status as a solo artist. It peaked on top of the Croatian Albums Chart and produced several commercially successful singles, including "Gospe moja" (), "Oprosti mala" (), and "Ne zovi me Marija" (). Rozga's second studio album Bižuterija (2011; ) produced the eponymous number-one lead single as well as singles "Rodit ću ti 'ćer i sina" () and "Ona ili ja" (). In support of the album, Rozga launched her first headlining tour, The Bižuterija Tour (2010–2012). She became the first Croatian female artist ever to sell out a concert at the Spaladium Arena.
Moderna žena (), the singer's third studio album, was released in 2016, and featured some of her most famous singles as a solo artist to date, including "Nirvana", "Kraljica" (), and "Tsunami". Moderna žena was Rozga's third studio album to top the Croatian Albums Chart and to receive a gold certification by the Croatian Phonographic Association. It further became the best-selling album of the year in Croatia. On 14 November 2022, Rozga released her first acoustic compilation album Minut Srca Mog and embarked on the regional Minut Srca Mog Tour (2022–23) in its promotion. The following three years saw the release of hit singles "Samo se ljubit' isplati", "Idi ti", "Od čega sam ja", "Lavica", "Začarani krug" and "Božić je".
In addition to her singing career, Rozga also shortly ventured in acting and voiceovers. She is considered to be one of the most famous singers in Croatia, having received gold certifications for three solo albums and having won numerous awards, including the Grand Prix award at the Split Festival. She has also enjoyed wider regional success and popularity in Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia.
Early life
Jelena Rozga was born on 23 August 1977, to mother Marija Rozga, a tailor in the company Jugoplastika, and father Antonio Rozga in Split, a city in the region of Dalmatia, Croatia. Rozga has one older sister named Julija Ćuk. Rozga was a hyperactive and energetic child who often danced and performed in her house. She insisted on becoming a ballet dancer and her parents sent her to ballet classes during the first grade of primary school when she was seven years old. She joined KUD Mozaik where she was under the guidance of Lepa Smoje, a famous Croatian choreographer. As a ballet dancer, she participated in various Yugoslav competitions and was deemed the biggest ballet talent in the country.
At the age of 13, Rozga was invited to participate in the opera house La Scala in Milan. Her parents, who could not afford moving abroad, could not let her participate. During her teenage years, Rozga first joined the high school in Split and after deciding to pursue her passion for dancing, she auditioned to join the ballet ensemble of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. She was accepted by the commission which was amazed by her dancing talents. Together with the group, she started performing in various localized productions of the plays Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker among others. Rozga later revealed that the ballet classes she did as a child "shaped me as a woman [...] it gave me order, dedication and discipline in life".
During an interview for the Croatian TV channel Croatian Music Channel, Rozga revealed that even as a ballet dancer in her childhood, she had a big passion for singing and her dream, if she were ever to venture in a music career, would be to join Croatian pop band Magazin, whose lead singer at that time, Ljiljana Nikolovska, served as a source of inspiration for her. Rozga was also an avid fan of the band, whose songs she knew by heart. In 1992, Rozga received an award at a singing competition where she performed the song "Uvenut će ružmarin" () by Magazin. In 1994, she participated in another competition, Zvuci Jadrana (), where she received the award Zlatna Gospa for best performance for her rendition of Magazin's "Ti si želja mog života" ().
Career 1996–2006: Magazin
When Rozga was at the age of 18, her mother who saw that Magazin's lead singer at that time, Danijela Martinović, was leaving the group, contacted group leader Tonči Huljić, informing him about her daughter's interest in auditioning for the group. Rozga's mother also gave Huljić a picture of her daughter and home cassettes with audio recordings of her home performances. Even before hearing her sing, Huljić decided to contract Rozga based on how "powerful" and unusual her surname sounded. He traveled to Split where Rozga auditioned for five minutes, performing "only a song and a half", including "Opusti se" () and "Zlato ljubavi" (). Shortly after hearing her sing, Tonči Huljić worked on "Aha" together with his wife, Vjekoslava Huljić, which was the first song Rozga had ever recorded. Subsequently, Rozga stopped her ballet classes and embarked on her musical career in the group Magazin. In 1996, she performed "Aha" on Dora, the Croatian song contest for Eurovision that year, where she finished second. For the performance of the song, she appeared dressed as a ballerina and performed a dance choreography similar to The Nutcracker.
That same year, at the age of 18, she signed a deal with Tonika Records, thus succeeding Danijela Martinović as the lead singer of Magazin. The first song she recorded with the group was "Suze Biserne" which the band also performed at the 1996 . The song instantly became popular among fans of the group and at the 1996 Melodije hrvatskog Jadrana, it was recognized as the most performed song of the year. In 1996, Magazin released their first album together with Rozga, and their twelfth overall studio album titled Nebo boje moje ljubavi. The album was a big commercial success receiving a golden certification in Croatia. It produced several hit songs, including the widely famous singles "Suze Biserne", "Opijum" and "Minut' srca tvog" as well as "Nebo boje moje ljubavi" and "Samo navika". In 1997, Magazin competed at Dora with the song "Opijum", finishing seventh. Several months after, the band also participated at the Melodijama Hrvatskog Jadrana (MHJ) where they performed the song "Ime mi spominje". In 1998, the group's second studio album with Rozga, Da si ti ja was released; it was a commercial success in the region of former Yugoslavia, receiving a platinum certification in Croatia and Slovenia. The album produced several commercially successful singles, including "Gutljaj vina", "Ginem", "Na svijetu sve" and "Idi i ne budi ljude". The songs nevertheless were not well received by music critics due to their "easy" and simple lyrics.
In 1999, Magazin performed at Dora with the song "Kasno je" and at the MHJ '99, they performed "Ako poludim". Minus i plus, the band's third album with Rozga, was released in 2000 and also included a streak of commercially successful singles such as the title song, "Je l' zbog nje", "Nemam snage da se pomirim" and "Ako poludim". The band performed "Hrvatska rapsodija" from the album at the 2000 Dora Festival and then "Nemam snage da se pomirim" at the Runjićev Festival. The fourth studio album S druge strane mjeseca saw the release of several singles including the eponymous song, "Ko me zove?" and "Ne vjerujem tebi, ne vjerujem sebi"; the last was performed at the MHJ '02. The band also performed for the first time at the 2002 festival Zlatne žice Slavonije with the song "Hajde, kaži kako".
The last album Magazin released with Rozga was Paa..? and it included the hit singles "Ne tiče me se", "Troši i uživaj", "Kad bi bio blizu", "Da li znaš da te ne volim" and "Slatko, ljuto, kiselo". In promotion of the album, the band performed "Kad bi bio blizu" at the 2003 Radijski festival and "Da li znaš da te ne volim" at the Split Festival. In 2004, the band won at the Split Music Festival with the song "Ne tiče me se" and performed at the Zlatne žice Slavonije festival with the song "Često". The band competed at the Dora 2005 with the Biblical-themed song "Nazaret" featuring Ervin, placing second. In 2006, Rozga left the group, after having been the lead singer for ten years. She continued collaborating with Tonči Huljić, the founder of the band.
2006–2009: Oprosti Mala Even during her time in the group, Rozga started appearing as a solo artist. In 2003, she impersonated Kylie Minogue by performing "I Should Be So Lucky" on Pink TV's New Year's Eve program "Vesele '80e". The video was uploaded on the nonamebg channel on 29 August 2009. In 2004, he recorded the song "šta ti je svit" ("What Is the World"), written by the Huljić duo, composed by Remi Kazinoti and featuring Jelena Rozga; it served as the opening song for the first Croatian TV soap opera Villa Maria. An accompanying music video with the two singing in front of the piano while a pair of young people dance is also incorporated. She also performed "Piši mi" in 2006 at the Lisinski theater during the concert "Noć zvijezda, noć hitova" by Nenad Ninčević.
Rozga recorded and released her debut solo album Oprosti Mala in 2006; the album was a commercial success reaching the top of the Croatian Albums Chart. That same year, she performed the album's title song featuring Magazin at the 2006 Dora national festival which marked her debut solo performance. Oprosti Mala produced six singles including "Oprosti mala", "Ne zovi me Marija, "Ja znam dobro što mi je", "Sve se meni čini da", "Nemam" and "Gospe moja". In 2006, Rozga took part in the Dora national song festival with "Ne zovi me Marija" which finished 6th. Rozga performed "Gospe moja" at the 2007 Split Festival where the song also received the Grand Prix award. In 2007, Rozga impersonated Sharon Stone in the movie Basic Instinct on HRT1.
During interviews, Rozga revealed that the transition from Magazin to a solo career was a challenging and difficult period that caused a lot of stress and health problems. She revealed that she was unaware of all the responsibilities and independent decisions a solo career would bring along and experienced disappointment when some of her initial concerts were attended by small audiences. Huljić also revealed that the initial period of transition involved searching for the sound the audience expected of Rozga and that it took almost four years before they could find her sound.