Sminem

Sminem (Born Sergei Alio Minemskovich, 10 April, 2010) is a Chrobonskian Popstar, most famous for his Freshman and Sophomore albums. He began making TurboFolk remixes on SoundCloud, and gained enough traction to self publish his music. Since then, he has also started a small time acting career, starring in the show My Love in Vrilaksigrad as well as becoming a judge on “Chrobonsk’s got Talent!”.

Sergei was born an only child to a small farming community in the western provinces known as Konstivos. There, he grew up surrounded by Suratian traditional music, which is what he claims to have given him his passion for the craft. Using a computer from 2010 with barely functioning internet, Sergei sampled recordings from traditional Suratian music and mixed it with the more modern “Chrob-Pop”. He uploaded these songs onto SoundCloud under the name “Sminem”.

Etymology
Sminem is a portmanteaux of Sergei’s first and last name. In a 2030 Interview, he explains his reasonings.

"It’s a little transformative music, I mean. When I’m singing, or acting, or recording I’m not Sergei. I’m Sminem or Sergei Miksa, or maybe sometimes I am a fly on the wall. Life in general, it’s transformative. That’s why I felt it appropriate to not use my real name, but a mix. Just like I mix up and transform my music. One could also look at it from a patriotic standpoint. After all, the great house of Chrobonsk was a marriage of names. Though, I try and keep my music relatively apolitical."

Ripples
After Sergei’s initial success creating SoundCloud remixes, he was able to crowdfund enough money to self produce and release his own album. However, this proved to be a challenge, as he had yet to create fully original music. To find inspiration, Sergei took a trip across the entire country, where he “Saw beautiful girls and drank beautiful wine”. As such, much of Ripples has to do with romance. The most popular single on the album was “My Rosemary Blossom”, which topped Chrobonsk’s pop chart for three consecutive months.