Rauf & Faik
Rauf & Faik are a Russian pop duet of Azerbaijani origins, formed by twin brothers Rauf and Faik Mirzaev. Their debut song is "вечера". They are best known for their Russian language No. 1 single "Childhood", released in 2018. They release music sung in both Russian and English. They usually associate themselves with R&B and emo-rap grooves.
Biography
The brothers are ethnically Azerbaijani. According to the brothers, they have always had a fascination with music, as they inherited musical talent from their maternal grandfather, who they knew as an opera singer and a director at an opera house in Baku. They began to study music at the age of 4; their neighbour saw that they were talented and offered to take them to a music-focused college, where they played the piano until 8 years old, where they transitioned to vocals. They later sung with the House of Children's Creativity and music studio Above the Rainbow. According to the channel "Music First" their vocal range is 4 1/2 octaves.They grew up listening to 90s Soul, R&B, and Pop and music, citing Brian McKnight and Michael Jackson. More recently, they have commented on receiving inspiration from western artists such as XXXTentacion, who they consider very inspiring, and to a lesser degree, Post Malone; though their profile on Music First also lists Sam Smith.
XXXTentacion, according to Faik, means a lot to them and very inspiring. At the beginning of ”Detstvo” music video, a Tupac Shakur reference is seen.
Before focusing entirely on music, they worked as singers in a cafe. They are both Muslims. Rauf & Faik released the single "Ramadan" in 2021.
Music
Their first music video — released for the song "Evenings" — amassed several hundred thousand views, and thousands of likes, resulting in offers to sing at multiple venues. A later music video for the song "I Love You", became the 28th most popular song of 2018 on the Russian social networking site VKontakte.Their debut album, also titled "Ya Lyublyu Tebya”, was released later in September, 2018. According to the brothers, they invested only 1,500 Rubles into advertising the album. Despite little inherent publicity, the song "Childhood" reached number one on VKontakte.
"Pain & Memories", their second studio album, released on March 15, 2019, and quickly reached 8th place on Apple Music.
Since beginning their professional music career, the brothers have toured in over 20 Russian cities, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Germany.