Manca Špik

Manca Špik is a Slovenian pop singer, born on 17 September 1980 in Kranj and raised in Bohinjska Bela. She is one of the best-known voices of the Slovenian festivals, with a win at Melodije morja in sonca, two second places at Slovenska popevka and three appearances at EMA.

In 2003 she won the jury award at Prvi glas Gorenjske, where she met the songwriter and producer Raay. She joined his group R'n'B Wannabes, which won the young performers' evening of Melodije morja in sonca that same year. She went on to study Slovene and Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian languages and literature at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana while recording backing vocals for many Slovenian artists; in 2004 she sang backing vocals at EMA for Natalija Verboten, Maja Slatinšek and Žana.

Her solo debut came at Melodije morja in sonca 2005 with Raay's "Solze z neba", third place and the award for best performance. "Marinero" was second in 2006, and in 2007 she won the festival with "Baila, baila, baila". In 2018 "Kjer pomol poljubi morje" was second and again brought her the performance award. At Slovenska popevka she was second with "Vse to je moj svet" (2007), third with "Poljub za lahko noč" (2009) and second again with "To so te reči" (2013), music she wrote herself. Her best EMA result was fourth place in 2010 with "Tukaj sem doma", by Andrej Babić and Feri Lainšček.

From 2012 to 2014 she sang in the house band of the TV show Moja Slovenija, and she went to the Eurovision Song Contest twice as a backing singer, for Tinkara Kovač in Copenhagen in 2014 and for Maraaya in Vienna in 2015. Her first album, Iz prve roke, came out in 2012.

In 2016 she returned to Melodije morja in sonca in a duet with Kvatropirci, "Pesem", which collected the most points from both the hall and the phone vote and won the label Menart's audience award. That December she recorded "Oba" with Isaac Palma, which reached four million YouTube views in under half a year and gave its name to her 2017 album. Le enkrat se živi followed in 2022, and "Rekel si" in 2023.

Manca Špik writes some of her songs herself, among them "Ljubezenska puščica", "Daj, prepusti se" and "Ni skrbi", and has worked with Matjaž and Urša Vlašič, Andrej Babić, Martin Štibernik and Rok Lunaček, but above all with Raay. She marked twenty years since her first festival with a big concert with guests at the Festival Hall in Bled.