Alka Vuica

Alka Vuica is a Croatian singer, lyricist and television presenter, born on 8 June 1961 in Pula to Zvonko and Zdenka Vuica. By her own account she has been writing songs since she learned to write. At 18 she moved to Zagreb, where she met the composer Đorđe Novković, the manager Vladimir Mihaljek and Goran Bregović.

Through the 1980s she worked as a journalist, for papers such as Polet, Globus and Nacional, and as a lyricist. Karlo Metikoš liked her words and introduced her to Josipa Lisac, for whom she wrote "Gdje Dunav ljubi nebo", "Danas sam luda", "Kraljica divljine" and the album Hoću samo tebe (1983). Her lyrics were also sung by Željko Bebek, Neki To Vole Vruće ("California"), Denis & Denis ("Ja sam lažljiva"), Boris Novković, Vlado Kalember ("Vino na usnama") and Viktorija, and with Gibonni she wrote the words of "Rušila sam mostove od sna" for Dino Dvornik and Josipa Lisac. Her biggest songwriting success was Tajči's "Hajde da ludujemo", with music by Zrinko Tutić, which won the Yugoslav selection for the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest.

She started singing her own songs in the early 1990s. Her first album, Alka Vu... Winnetou, came out in 1993, and Laži me followed in 1994. "Laži me" went to the top of the Croatian charts and became the hit of the year, followed by "Otkad te nema", and that year she was named songwriter of the year. With accordion and violin in the arrangements, she is often credited with bringing ethno sounds into Croatian pop.

In 1996 she won the first prize for stage performance at Melodije hrvatskog Jadrana. Her next albums were Za tebe čuvam sebe (1995), with the hit "Ej, šta mi radiš", Alkatraz (1997), Balkan Girl (1999), with "Varalica", Profesionalka (2001) and Cirkus (2004), and later Alkina kafana (2013), Croatian Summer (2016), Vrijeme za nas with Zoran Šerbedžija (2024) and Ljubavnik (2025). Her best-known songs also include "Pioniri", "Ko se sa mnom druži", "Mač u kamenu" and "A još ga volim".

Alka Vuica has also worked in television. She hosted the talk show Jedan na jedan on Nova TV from 2004, was the main judge of RTL's children's talent show Zvijezdice in 2015 and 2016, hosted Vidimo se u Sarajevu on Pink BH from 2019, and since March 2024 has been a panelist on Tko to tamo pjeva?. She entered the 2009-10 Croatian presidential election with the backing of the Green List, but dropped out of the race. Her son Arian, from her relationship with the artist Vuk Veličković, became a music producer.