Ilyas Ayubov

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Ilyas Ayubov Ильяс Аюбов
Birth name	Ilyas Ayubov
Born	1986
Origin	Grozny, Chechen-Ingush ASSR, Soviet Union
Genre(s)	Music of Chechnya, Pop music
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instrument(s)	Voice
Years active	2005-

Ilyas Ayubov (Chechen: Ильяс Аюбов) (born 1986 in Grozny, Chechnya) is a Chechen pop singer.

[edit] Biography

Ilyas was born in 1986 in Grozny, the Chechen capital, where he spent much of his youth. During the start of the Second Chechen War, Ilyas and his family fled to Sernovodsk, near the border with Ingushetia, as refugees, and Ilyas completed high school there, graduating in 2005.

While staying with relatives in Sernovodsk, Ilyas met a neighbor who played the guitar, and took guitar lessons from him and started to sing, which helped Ilyas realize his singing abilities. However, Ilyas's dance abilities in school led the children's dance ensemble "Marsho" to invite him, and in 2000 Ilyas danced in their ensemble. He would continue to dance in ensembles, including that of late ballet dancer Makhmud Esambayev, until a leg injury abruptly ended his career in 2005.

In 2001, Ilyas's father returned to their home in Grozny from Sernovodsk, while Ilyas stayed behind due to studies at his high school. Ilyas returned to Grozny with the rest of his family in December of that year to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr, although the city was under curfew by the Russian military, which had been prolonged further due to the holiday. On Eid night, many guests had assembled in the Ayubov family home, and Ilyas's father left with a friend to an adjacent street to visit their relatives. Around nine o'clock that night, Ilyas heard automatic gunfire ring outside, which Ilyas later described as "an alarming echo which answered his soul". Ilyas and the rest of his family waited apprehensively until dawn for his father's return. In the morning, Ilyas rushed outside and ran to the adjacent street to find a large crowd. Although some of neighbors in the crowd tried to block Ilyas from the sight, he saw his father's car riddled with bullet holes, and his father's corpse lying in a pool of blood a few feet away, murdered the night earlier by Russian Army soldiers.[1]

A year after the incident, Ilyas would record his first song, "Mother's Son", in memory of his father. However, his popularity would not take off until he introduced his second song, "Do You Believe", at two concerts - the song gained instant popularity on Chechen radio stations, and was continually aired every hour. Ilyas said that he found this sudden new fame had made him nostalgic for his old life, as he missed being able to spend as much time with friends and having an active social life. He also said that he found stardom to be a "disease of complacency and arrogance", and he felt that many professional singers had devalued themselves through arrogance, once they had realized fame. Ilyas himself generates no income from his music, which is widely pirated throughout marketplaces in Chechnya; however, he says, "But I think that if someone, sells my voice, to make a piece of bread to feed his family, I am glad so that I can help in any scheme."[2]

Ilyas has friendly relations with his contemporaries, such as Shamkhan Daldaev and Makka Sagaipova, although he admits that the older generation of Chechen singers tend to look down on the new, younger generation of pop singers as interested in temporary fame. Nevertheless, Ilyas has indicated that he will not continue a singing career, as he is a student at the Department of Finance and Economics at Chechen State University, and graduated from the Republican de Danza ballet academy, receiving a degree in choreography.

Ilyas says that he would have trained to become an athlete had it not been for the Chechen wars, and he says he is a passionate fan of freestyle wrestling and admires Buvaisar and Adam Saitiev, Chechen wrestlers who have won gold medals at the Olympics.

Ilyas is also a devout Muslim who refuses concerts and recitals during the month of Ramadan, and considers every prayer missed as a tragedy.