Interview by Carol Wright | Photographer: Norman Yap

We got to chat with singer/songwriter Nataliya Nikitenko about working on her own music versus collaborating with other artists and her debut single “Oil & Water.”

Has music always been a large part of your life? 

I was born in Ukraine (I’m fluent in Russian), raised in Australia, and now live in Los Angeles, California. I have basically been singing, dancing or acting since I was 4 years old. I was a ballroom dance champion by the time I was 8 and I also started singing, acting, and playing piano around that time. I joined a performing arts school where I competed in singing competitions, sang on telethons, and performed nationally. 

I wrote my first few original songs with the producer Audius Mutawarira when I was 13. Then, as a teenager, I was a series regular on the Australian TV shows, ‘Trapped’ and follow up series ‘Castaway.’ All of this led to the decision to move to LA where I became more and more involved in the music scene and got signed as a songwriter to Kobalt Music.

Since then, I’ve written songs like “No More Sad Songs (feat. Machine Gun Kelly)” by Little Mix, “Heavy” by Anne Marie, “Streets Don’t Love You” by A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, “Expensive (feat. Daye Jack)“ by Tori Kelly, just to name a few. Singing has always and will always be my first love. I am beyond grateful to be at the stage in my career where I get to create, sing, and share my own music.

Tell us about your debut single “Oil & Water.” Why did this seem like the right song to come out first? 

“Oil & Water” is a bittersweet song about the beginning of the end of a love story. Lyrically it’s exactly what I am going through at the moment, so I felt I needed to release it now.

Did you pull from experiences in your own life to write the song?

Oil and water will always separate and it’s a metaphor for what I was going through when I wrote the song. I knew, deep down, that a relationship I was in was over before I was out of it. To this day, I don’t know if it’s because we weren’t able to or if we just weren’t willing to make it work, but at some point it hurt too much to keep on trying. 

I’m just a girl sharing my experience, pain and vulnerability in song form. I hope that if there’s someone out there who might be going through the same thing, they can relate and maybe not feel so alone. 

In the past you have worked with artists like Little Mix, Anne-Marie, and Tori Kelly. What did you learn from collaborating with other artists? 

I’ve learned so much from the artists I’ve been fortunate enough to work with. Every time I go to create, I learn something new — whether it’s something technical, something about the process of collaborating with others creatives, my craft, or even about how I truly feel about something or someone I’m writing about. 

Songwriting has opened a lot of doors for me. It’s helped me to hone my craft and exposed me to so many different genres. I’ve met so many incredibly talented people and I’ve been able to travel all over the world to work with them. I feel very lucky. In this process I almost got signed a few times… but, timing is everything. I needed the life experience, especially over the last year and a half, to grow into the person I am now and to be able to create the songs I am creating now for myself. 

After this first release do you see yourself still working with other artists or are you going to focus more so on your own music now? 

I love creating with talented amazing people, so major yes! And yes, collaborations for sure! Unless I’m in album mode or touring, I’m always going to be making songs. It’s my outlet.

What advice do you have for aspiring artists?

1) Fall in love with the process. For a long time I was too busy trying to quickly reach the destination and it brought a lot of insecurity and discontent. 

2) Don’t compare yourself to others. Compare and despair, as they say.

3) Stay in your lane. You know what is authentic to you.

4) NEXT! If something falls through, onto the next opportunity. Next. Next. Next. Stay focused on what’s ahead. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t look in the rearview mirror. Keep moving forward.