In 1975 Sheyla and her friend Maizie Williams

July 09/14

Recently a fresh dance hit called “Live Better” has been released and appeared on various European radio stations. The song is a product of a joint creative work of an R’n’B singer Rassell and Sheyla Bonnick, a female performer familiar to everyone who still enjoys disco of 1970 and 1980’s. In 1975 Sheyla and her friend Maizie Williams were invited to the new project of German producer and composer Frank Farian. It was the birth of Boney M music band, the bright star of which has been shining for 40 years by now.

From the starting accords of the new song it becomes absolutely clear that the duo sounds perfect. Bonnick’s partner Rassell, whose real name is Ruslan Kuksinovich, is much younger than her. Still this performer from Latvia has quite a lot of experience in show business not only in his native country. Ruslan started his music career in his self-made hip-hop band “Device”. For about 10 years of activity the group managed to win most prestigious national music awards. The other participant of “Device”, Marat Ogleznev took part in incredibely prestigious and popular European music contests, Eurovision 2011, taking part in a project called “Musiqq”.

For last couple of years Rassell has been realizing his solo artist potential in the sphere of dance and R’n’B music. The performer, who started his activity as a part of a duo still enjoys making joint projects and frequently cooperates with other singers. No wonder he chose Sheyla’s vocal to sound in the new single . Her velvet voice pattern brings real charm to the song. Kuksinovich never had a doubt that only a person who has such a huge experience in disco and dance music can be suitable for that.

Nowadays Bonnick continues touring around Europe and post-Soviet countries performing such hits as “Sunny”,”Rivers of Babylon”, “Rasputin”, “ Ma Baker”, “Brown girl” , “Daddy Cool” loved by millions. She does that in her own inimitative manner bringing real pleasure to the audience who still cherish and value her personal contribution to the forming of a disco legend. She, in fact, stood at the origins of it.

However, lots of opponents of her creative activity claim that she personally has nothing to do with the success of the world famous group created in 1970-s. It stems from the fact that she had spent a very short period in Boney M before the final line-up was formed in 1976 . Bonnick was displaced by other vocalists of Jamaican origin, therefore she never managed to have her vocal recorded on the group’s albums who were released starting from 1976.

In 1986 the group officially ended up its creative activity. Since then each member of it recommenced his and her concert activity. That gives the fans a lucky chance to choose whom they want to hear their favourite songs performed by. Officially the right to use the name of the group has each member of the golden line-up. There is just one nuance: each of them can only use it denoting his or her personal name.

If one has a look at Russian official website Boney M one can learn everything about Sheyla. For instance about booking a show of her band that is extremely popular in Russia in particular. Bonnick’s team consists of two back vocalists and a male performer, who has a unique talent to make audience move their bodies from the very start, either it happens at some huge music festival or a private party. Nowadays a large number of contact groups choose to cooperate exactly with Bonnick and her band.