Donovan Watkis Podcast

Costi is the producer for Spice, Shaggy and Sean Paul's latest hit "Guh Dung Deh". Born in Constanța, Costi began his musical career by singing Romanian traditional folkloric music. He however achieved fame as a member of the Pop music boy band Valahia, enjoying several hits. In 1999 he started to experiment with manele, a composite Balkanic musical style, and in 2000 he collaborated with acclaimed manele singer Adrian Minune on Of, viața mea ("Oh, my life"),one of the first mainstream successes of the genre in Romania. Following Valahia's dissolution in 2002, he started a solo career, concentrating on manele. In this period he collaborated with several well known manele singers.Unlike some Romani counterparts, Costi Ioniță does not use a nickname.Despite his success in manele, he also experimented with other musical styles, such as lăutărească, populară or turbo-folk. In the late 2000s Costi extended his act in the Balkans and Middle East, achieving success in Turkey and Saudi Arabia with the song Ca la Ams