Shaya
Marinna Hansen, known professionally as Shaya, is Danish-Greek of Guyanese and Indian descent. She rose to prominence as a member of the girl band Hi-5 that was created after a huge publicized cattle call for a Greek talent show. Shaya’s family moved to Sweden when her parents divorced when she was just aged 6. At the age of 12, Shaya  and her family immigrated to Thessaloniki, Greece. Shaya enjoyed singing and dancing from a young age but began a singer by chance when she was persuaded to get on stage to sing with co-workers after work at a club in Kavala when she was aged 18.

Tamta
Tamta Goduadze is known simply as Tamta. The Georgian-Greek pop singer is famous in Greece and Cyprus following her participation in Greece’s Super Idol in which she came second. She started singing when aged 5 and came to Greece when she was 22 years. She took odd manual jobs until she rose to stardom thanks to her participation in the talent show.

Eleni Foureira

Born in Albania, Eleni Foureira initially claimed to have South American origins. Raised in the working-class suburb of Kallithea she became part of the girl group Mystique before launching her solo career. When singing with Mystique she was believed to be Brazilian and then claimed to be from Mexico. When she filed her papers to obtain Greek citizenship there was a great deal of controversy over the fact that she had tried to hide her Albanian background. Speaking on a morning show, she said: “Many times I have been prevented from doing many things because of my origin. It’s wrong for my background to be considered a drawback. I don’t get it. There has been a great deal of talk about that and I’m not going to apologize. I grew up here. I can’t speak a different language. Who cares where I come from. I’m just doing my job!”