Elena Velevska

Elena Velevska, born on 26 October 1980 in Prilep, is a Macedonian folk and pop singer. With her stage style and a strong presence in the regional tabloids she has at times been called "the Macedonian Ceca", and since the early 2000s she has been a regular on Macedonian folk festivals and on diaspora stages abroad.

She started singing at eight at school shows and kept performing there until the end of primary school, when she represented Prilep at a school contest in Probištip. At fifteen she recorded her first song, "Sonuvam", with the Prilep group Unikat. Her debut album, Što kje mi se pari (1999), was made at the Točak studio in Prilep with producer Dejan Momirovski, who also wrote the words of her next big hit, "Pu, pu mašala". It gave its name to her second album, released in 2001.

Festivals opened the way to tours abroad, mostly in Switzerland and Italy. Her first was Goce Fest 2002, where she sang "Ej, moja Makedonijo" with the group Bolero from Strumica. At Valandovo 2002 she won an award for stage performance with "Sviri čiček", written by Ilčo Jovanov, accompanied by maestro Ferus Mustafov and part of the Aguševi orchestra. In 2003 "Živeam za tebe" at the Tetovo folk festival took her to the Folk hit na godinata show.

After a tour of Australia with Momirovski she released "Govorot na teloto", with words by Gjorgji Kalajdžiev, the title song of her third album (2003), which held sixteen songs. She sang "Šah-mat" at Ohridski trubaduri, and "Žena ognena", performed at the Rosa festival in 2004, was widely taken up by the public and named her fourth album (2005), on which she wrote two songs herself. Rosa has stayed her festival: she returned with "Narkotiku moj" (2005), "Grešnica" (2010), "Loša kopija" (2013) and "Najsilna" (2020), among others. In 2007 she played a world tour for large diaspora audiences.

Her later records include the traditional collection Gjerdan za dušata (2006), the albums Vozduh and Visok pritisok (both 2010), and Gjerdan za dušata 2 (2015), recorded live with the group Čardak. She also shared a live video release with Aneta and the group Molika, sang at the Rumeli Fest in Turkey in 2017, and in 2026 released Osum amaneti, a project of traditional ethno songs.