Stoja

Stoja, born Stojanka Novaković on 4 June 1972 in the village of Perlez near Zrenjanin in Vojvodina, is a Serbian singer of folk, pop-folk and turbo-folk, known for her strong, deep alto. Her father Milan, born in Pukiš near Lopare in Bosnia and Herzegovina, often sang sevdalinke, and she got her voice from him, but it was a schoolteacher who spotted her talent and sent her to a school singing competition, which she won. She grew up in Perlez and lived there until she was 25.

She began singing as an amateur in kafanas and discos in 1987, almost by accident, at a local slava. Widowed at 19, when her first husband died in a car crash in 1991, she kept singing, moved to Novi Sad and then to Borča near Belgrade, where she was noticed by the composer Stevan Simeunović, who has written almost all of her songs ever since.

Her debut album, Kako je meni sada, came out in 1998 on Lazarević Production, with "Da, da, da" and a duet with Mile Kitić, "Takva je ljubav". She then signed with Grand Production, owned by Lepa Brena and Saša Popović, and released Ćiki, ćiki (1999), whose title song and "Neću da ostarim" were the big hits. The title song of Samo (2000) did even better, and that year she was named folk singer of the year. Evropa followed, and its title song became one of her greatest hits, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina after it was heard in the TV series Viza za budućnost.

After Zakletva (2003) she changed her look completely and released the ballad "Starija", and the album Starija (2004) was declared folk album of the year. Metak (2006) brought "Nešto mi govori" and a duet with Šako Polumenta, "Gde god pođem tebi idem", and that year she was named best folk singer in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Do gole kože (2008) and Naj, naj (2009) followed, the latter with her duet with Dejan Matić, "Muzika".

In 2013 she released Nije da nije on BN Music, her first album away from Grand Production in 15 years, followed by the singles "Bela ciganka", "Ola ola", "Takvog dečka hoću ja" and "Lila lila", collected with older hits on Bela ciganka (2015). The video for "Bela ciganka" has passed 100 million views on YouTube, and a concert she gave in Sofia drew more than 18,000 people. She has kept releasing singles since, among them "Samo jako" (2017) with Relja Popović and Coby, which samples her own "Samo", "Čista hemija" with Coby (2018), "Žena sa Balkana" with Mimi Mercedez (2019), "Hera" (2021) and "Animal" with Gazda Paja (2025). Stoja has lived in Belgrade since 2007.