Baku to the Future: Hot Press meets Emin

“One for the money, two for the show” is the general order of things when it comes to the music business. However, despite the unashamedly radio-friendly commercialism of his sound, it’s probably safe to say that Azerbaijani-born singer Emin Agalarov – better known as Emin (rhymes with ‘lemon’) – isn’t really in it for the money. The businessman son of a property developing billionaire tycoon, he was already a self-made millionaire himself before the Russian release of his 2006 debut album, <>Still.
Indeed, the handsome 35-year-old is so stinking rich that he counts Donald Trump as a personal friend. Trump even appears in the video for his single ‘In Another Life’. Perhaps it’s because Trump fires him in the video, but they’re obviously not on first name terms.
“Mr. Trump was a business partner of mine because we brought Miss Universe to Russia,” Emin explains, speaking with only a slight Russian accent (he has lived in New York for many years). “Now we are in talks to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. He’s a cool guy.”
How did you get him to appear in your video?
“On the morning of Miss Universe, I didn’t want to waste the opportunity,” he smiles. “I said, ‘Mr. Trump, would you like to be in the video?’ He said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ I said, ‘Just fire me!’ He said, ‘Yeah, I can do that!’ He’s great.”
A 2014 World Music Award winner, today he’s promoting his eighth studio album More… Amor, which he hopes will be his worldwide breakthrough. He’s certainly throwing his financial weight behind it. In a few hours we’ll be eating at Nobu, but right now we’re sitting in the plush environs of the penthouse suite of the Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge. Apparently very popular with Russians, it’s the most expensive hotel in London – and this is its most exclusive room. Given the Trump connection, I’d half-expected Emin to be an insufferably arrogant type, but actually he’s charming, friendly and smooth in a non-smarmy way. It’s not for nothing that he’s earned a reputation as the Russian Enrique Iglesias.
Although he has released seven albums in Russia – singing in both English and Russian – and signed a global deal with EMI in 2012, the deal fell through at a crucial time. European audiences were first given a proper taste of his sound when he sang as the guest artist at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, a performance that was broadcast to 200 million viewers.
“It wasn’t as big of a deal as we expected,” he recalls. “The production and the performance was fantastic, very big, but I was signed to EMI. They were supposed to give me support to use that opportunity, but obviously EMI right at that moment in time went down the drain.”
Not to question his obvious talents, but it’s not difficult to figure out how he landed the Eurovision gig. A father of two, Emin is married to the daughter of the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, with whom he shares homes in Baku, New York and Moscow. He doesn’t want to discuss Azerbaijani politics, but surely he requires security?
He shakes his head. “Security-wise no, and I don’t, I’m alone. I have security in Moscow, not because I’m married to the daughter of a president, but for other reasons. In Baku I’m actually alone; I don’t have any security. It’s a safe place. I am married to the daughter of a president, it does complicate things in the sense that I’m doing an interview right now, and there are things that might not go in line with my music career with the presidential family being a presidential family. Having in their family someone who sings is a bit strange, right?”
Does his father-in-law disapprove?
“No, nobody disapproves, but it’s strange,” he laughs. “Think about if President Obama’s daughter married an equivalent of me in America, who would that be? Jay-Z or someone. Would that be weird? Approve or disapprove wouldn’t be a question. That would be weird!”
Emin performed during the opening ceremony at the controversial Winter Olympics in Sochi in February of last year, but he’s understandably reluctant to talk about President Putin.
“As you travel the world, you look at the news in Russia, you get one story, you look at the news in London, you get the other story, you go to New York and you get a third story,” he says, with a wary smile. “I think these are stories that are pitched to us. The reality of what’s happening, in my opinion, somewhere like Ukraine is that it’s being used as an exchange card and creating a crisis to resolve issues between the big whales, which are the United States, Russia and Europe. That’s my take on it. I could comment but what do I know? I’m not a politician.”
Emin might be the heir to a billion dollar fortune, and married into a presidential family, but his beginnings were more humble. “My earliest memories are of Baku, the old city,” he says. “That’s where my parents were when they got married. Narrow streets and me running around between our little apartment there and playing with the kids. I think I had a happy Soviet childhood.”
He doesn’t come from a musical background. “No, I had a non-musical family,” he reflects. “I remember my great-great grandma, who also lived in the old city. She actually had a Ukrainian background and always had a guitar on her wall. Only after she passed away when I was a kid, very little, did I find out that she actually played the guitar. But I never heard her play. She played and sang. And that was the only person in my family who played and sang.”
His family moved to Moscow when he was three. As his father gradually built up his property empire, Emin attended a boarding school in Switzerland as a teenager, and then moved to New Jersey where he studied business management. He had been singing and writing songs since his early teens, as well as translating Elvis songs into Russian, but he first performed live in a dingy New Jersey bar.
“These guys who were building my website to sell Russian stuff on eBay – one was playing guitar, one was playing piano, one was Korean and the other one was from Iran. They said, ‘There’s an open mic night, do you want to go try it?’ I was maybe 17 in New Jersey. We went and tried and we sucked, we were terrible. I couldn’t hit half the notes and the guys couldn’t hit half the chords, but it was an amazing, different feeling that I’d never experienced, being on stage in front of an audience. A small audience, drunk, small bar, but that had an interesting imprint on my life.”
He initially didn’t see music as a viable career choice. “I went to college to study business, I was 17. It wasn’t my father’s will; it was my choice. My first goal in life was to learn to earn money in any way I can. I knew business was something that would help me. I had thoughts about music but, back then, I wouldn’t have known where to start.”
It wasn’t until some years later, when he had already made a personal fortune through various business interests (his property portfolio includes many hotels, restaurants and resorts), that he decided to give music a serious go.
“I went back and joined the family business in Moscow,” he explains. “And years started going by quite quickly – a year, two years, three years – because college and school years are slow. They kind of drag, you’re waiting for the holidays. But when you start working in the real world it’s life, it’s real quick. I started missing the musical element in my life so I bought myself a little synth at home, started picking chords, writing some songs, and eventually I had enough songs to put out an album.
“Still was my first album, ‘Still’ was my first song, and I wanted to do it right although I still didn’t know how, because I thought in my head, ‘I’m almost 25, I can’t start my music career when I’ll be 40 or 50. It’s now or never.’ So I really went for it and I don’t regret it.”
Still was a modest success, selling almost 100,000 copies in Russia. It started the ball rolling and he’s been fairly prolific since, releasing almost an album a year. In 2010, he relocated to London to work with acclaimed producer Brian Rawling (Kylie Minogue, One Direction). “Brian is probably one of the most consistent, successful, professional producers I’ve known. On a yearly basis he produces number one hits for the biggest acts to this day. And he’s very honest when we sit down and decide what we’re going to record for the next album.”
Featuring a highly polished and inoffensive blend of Euro dance pop and crooned ballads, More… Amor was written and recorded in New York City. Emin co-wrote most of the songs with writers from Dee Town Entertainment and UK hit-makers Paul Barry and Jamie Scott — who wrote One Direction’s ‘Story of My Life’. It may be a hit or it may not. But does Emin see his music career as just another part of his business empire or does he consider himself to be an artist?
“I want to see myself as an artist because business is a daily routine that anyone is capable of,” he proffers. “It’s a job. Everything has rules. I have a few restaurants in Moscow. You picture them in your head, what kind of kitchen, what kind of people, lights, interior, and then you start building it and in the end you’re hoping that what you’ve built will actually attract people to want to go and eat there.
“With music it’s slightly different because when you’re writing a song you’re hoping for it to be a single and catapult your career in any country, but once it’s finished – it could be a great song – you never know what that song will bring to the table. Maybe it’s not an obvious song that takes you to the next level. And of course, when you’re writing, you’re not thinking that you’re writing it
for any money or for it to sell you more gigs.”
Well, you hardly need the money!
“True!” he laughs. “So my music becomes quite independent for me.”