Imagine Cat Stevens goes to Brazil and picks Georgian language for his next song.

Onise Putkaradze (or simply Onise) might kept himself relatively low-key, but actually he is one of the most peculiar characters in Georgian music of this century.

As far as 15 years ago, he took Georgian pop-music world by surprise, singing about promiscuous people, street gangsters, everyday events and personal experiences in a manner that was full of humour and at once disregarded the tacit pop self-censorship that was all too common in that period.

His songs became the talk of the town, but he just continued to work simply for and by himself, detesting the flashiness of all that pop beaumonde.

In the recent years, however, he has become musically much more productive, and we saw humorous, often cynical young pop-rebel turn to matured, classy songwriter with a laidback, smoky voice and unafraid to apply a little romantic touch.

“Mere Ra” (“მერე რა”), one of the songs he released in 2018, sounds as someone like Cat Stevens having spent some time in Brazil and taking up a bit of that samba sensuality. To put it short, very, very beautiful.

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Onise on Facebook.