Ruslana is releasing a music video for her new single WOW that has aired on Ukrainian radio stations for a few weeks already. In it, Ruslana is trying to answer the question of who is cooler, She or She. The street youth culture of hip hop and dance battles provided an ideal setting to realize the idea of the music video.

WOW exploits heavily Ruslana’s new Amazing image. According to the storyline, Ruslana appears as two different characters with their respective styles in the video and engages in a dance duel with herself: Ruslana vs Ruslana!
Ruslana’s new image integrates the 90s’ street style and the 80s’ hard rock influences into a stereotype-free character that isn’t afraid of being a little outrageous, even shocking, unexpected and flamboyant. In other words, a character who is just WOW, which is true freedom.

"Looks like my 'WOW' can now replace the sacred 'HEY'", comments Ruslana, “My new single is a dance battle between two youth subcultures and lifestyles. And since I feel comfortable and natural both as a street hip hopper and as a high-power celeb on high heels driving a Lamborghini, I decided I won’t be shy and show everybody my WOW.”

The music video WOW is yet another of Ruslana’s works in the genre of parody, which can often be provocative and showy. Not everybody got to appreciate the humour in the music video Kolomyika, another parody by Ruslana. The city council of Verkhovyna where the video was shot even considered suing Ruslana for offensive treatment of the Hutsul cultural heritage. So if this time anybody doubts the benevolence of Ruslana’s intentions, she will apparently get sued by an association of rappers and hip-hoppers
Five days before the shooting, Ruslana approached the dance group MyWay. In just a few days, the group’s choreographers were able not only to understand, feel and appreciate the idea of the future video, but also created a whole dance show to go along with it. Last but not least, in these few days they taught Ruslana to dance hip hop.
“I’d like to say special thanks to Oleksandr Bobik and Denis Stulnikov who picked up my mood at a glance and helped me realize my idea so well”, says Ruslana.
Another unexpected character in WOW is Eduard Klim, the husband and producer of the well-known Ukrainian singer Gaitana and Ruslana’s family friend.
"When we were just beginning to work on the single, in my head I was shuffling the names of well-known rappers, and we even were negotiating with a few of them. But I was looking for the right mood, character, ambition,” Ruslana comments, “And suddenly I realized that Eduard was the ideal character for my song, and he just had to do the rap part. I was right; this role is simply made for him. A true actor and musician, he sensed and transmitted my idea perfectly!”
Ruslana’s new image is intimately tied to the dance battle style; however, it will take time before this becomes a trend in Ukraine. To help the movement, Ruslana plans to create a line of clothes in her WOW style and make her fans look WOW/Amazing head to toe.
“I hope my fans will appreciate the changes in my style, image and choreography. It’s not easy for me to break with my stereotypes, but a refresh is necessary, and I’d like to wish everybody to be just WOW.” .

P.S. Ten main WOWs of Ruslana’s new music video:
• WOW is the dance battle of Ruslana’s two opposed characters.
• The track was mixed by the sound master Richie Stites who had worked with Michael Jackson, Outkast, Tupac Shakur.
• The song was written by Ruslana in collaboration with Oleksandr Ksenofontov (frontman of TFC and Ruslana’s husband) and Vlad Debryanskyi (Jack Spade, guitarist of TFC).
• The track was recorded in Los Angeles by the sound producer Luke Tozour who had worked with Katy Perry and Pink, and producer Jack Spade.
• The rhythm and drums section was recorded with the participation of the drummer and Grammy Awards winner Brian Collier (Santana, Lauryn Hill), the drummer Oscar Seaton (George Benson, Lionel Ritchie) and the legendary bassist and king of funk bass Rustee Allen (Sly and The Family Stone).
• Back vocals were recorded by the back vocalist of Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan and Toni Braxton.
• The rap part for the Ukrainian version of the song was recorded by Eduard Klim, the producer and husband of Gaitana, a Ukrainian singer.
• WOW will be officially presented during Ukraine’s largest live TV dance show featuring a dance battle with more than 1500 dancers.
• The Balkan version of WOW will be created by Maestro Goran Bregovic.
• Part of the song is the restyled March of Chernomor, one of the world’s most recognized and popular Slavic tunes from the opera Ruslan and Liudmila by Mikhail Glinka.

You can watch Ruslana's music video of Wow below :