| Jah Khalib | |
| Birth Name: | Bakhtiyar Mammadov |
| Birth Date: | 29 September 1993 |
| Birth Place: | Almaty, Kazakhstan |
| Origin: | Azerbaijani, Kazakh |
| Label: | Warner Music Russia |
Bakhtiyar Mammadov (Azerbaijani: Bəxtiyar Məmmədov, Kazakh: Бахтияр Мамедов; born 29 September 1993), known professionally as Jah Khalib is a Kazakh-Azerbaijani rapper, singer and record producer.
Bakhtiyar Mammadov was born on September 29, 1993, in Almaty to an Azerbaijani father and Kazakh mother.[1] [2] He studied musicology and management in the Kazakh National Conservatory.[3]
When starting his solo career, he took on the stage name of Jah Khalib. According to him, Khalib is a fictitious name, while Jah is the name of God in Rastafari. Among his early works, the most popular were "Твои сонные глаза", "SnD", "Сжигая дотла" and "Ты для меня". Soon after, his popularity grew outside Kazakhstan.[4] He released his first solo album in 2016, named "Если че, я Баха".[4]
In 2015 and 2016 he was included in the list of stars of show business and sports of the Forbes Kazakhstan magazine. In June 2017, he won the Muz-TV 2017 Prize for the "Breakthrough of the Year" nomination.[5] In 2018, he received his first Golden Gramophone Award for the song "Медина" in Moscow.[6]
In the summer of 2019, he moved to Kyiv, where he continued to work on his album "Выход в свет".[7] He released the album on 29 October 2019, which contained 14 tracks.
He got married in the summer of 2020.[8] In 2022 he revealed that his wife is Ukrainian, who converted to Islam.[9]
On 3 August 2022, a 2-hour-long podcast about Islam by ORTA featuring Mammadov was published on YouTube. One of the guests, a jurist named Jaslan Aytmaganbetov, claimed that he was informed by a university tutor of criminology ranked as a lieutenant colonel, that 85% of the rape that occurs to women, occurred because the victim "happened to be at the wrong place, in the wrong clothes, at the wrong time". Aytmaganbetov then added that "the clothes attract, they definitely attract". Mammadov, along with all the other guests, agreed with the message.[10] [11] [12] The all-male cast of the video also delved into women's role in the religion, and Mammadov claimed that "a woman feels safer in a veil". The podcast gained traction in early 2024 as prosecution of Quandyq Bishimbaev was taking place, and a cancel campaign started against all guests on Instagram and Twitter.[13] The list of the controversial podcast's guests included author of the RUH FOOD project Nursultan Zaykenov and marketologist Rasul Abdullaev, the two are notable for being members of the Youth Policy Council under President of Kazakhstan Tokayev.[14] Aya Shalkar, known for her lead female role in the viral "Medina" song clip, said that she was aware of the misogynistic lyrics of the song and has been regretting her collaboration with Jah Khalib for a very long time. There, in reference to the fragment of the now-infamous podcast, she also stated that "100% sexual assault is done due to the rapist's fault" and likened the criminals that "cannot contain themselves" to dogs.[15]