A fusion rock band leader from Siberia whose music features in an ad by the US tech giant says he has never bought the product he was selling
Apple’s new marketing campaign promoting its brand-new iPhone 15 Pro has involved a collaboration with a little-known musician from Russia’s Siberia, Albert Kuvezin. While a short iPhone ad featuring his song has become immensely popular on YouTube, Kuvezin himself has admitted he has never owned the product he has been selling.
The ad for the iPhone 15 Pro Titanium, which has the ‘Karangailyg Kara Hovaa (Dyngyldai)’ song by Kuvezin’s Yat-Kha band playing in the background, has attracted some 14 million views. That is about ten times more than another iPhone 15 ad featuring the song ‘Get Him Back!’ by Olivia Rodrigo, a pop star with a global reach, was able to garner over the same time.
Kuvezin, the man arguably behind Apple’s seemingly successful marketing campaign, lives in a small mountain village in Russia’s remote Siberian region of Tuva, which borders Mongolia. He leads a fusion rock band that merges local Tuvan folk music with Western rock. The song that Apple licensed for its clip was released by the band as early as in 1995 as part of its ‘Yenisei-Punk’ album. The song’s name translates into English as ‘In the Endless Black Steppe’.
Kuvezin himself told the Wall Street Journal in the wake of his collaboration’s success that he did not initially understand when Apple contacted him to use an old song of his for an ad. He simply forwarded the message to his band’s record company based in Finland.
It was only after he started hearing about the ad from friends and relatives that he realized what had happened. Kuvezin added that he was still unsure why the US tech giant chose his song for the commercial. “I still don’t know,” he told the WSJ while Apple itself declined to comment.
The musician did not reveal exactly how much Apple paid for licensing his band’s song. “For an unknown musician, it’s quite good,” he said. “For a rock star, it’s maybe one concert.” He also admitted that he has never owned an iPhone due to its high price. He opted for a Chinese smartphone instead, he told WSJ.
“I have a Huawei,” Kuvezin said, adding that “it was very cheap.”
He only expressed his hope that people would show more interest in the music his band is playing after the ad’s success. “I don’t know if people will know the name of our band,” Kuvezin said. “But people will recognize the sound. Which is also good.”
“I think it could be great for people worldwide to discover our music,” he said, adding that for him it was more important that “we can keep doing our music.”
Kuvezin, who founded his band back in the 1980s, gained some prominence in his home Tuva Region and received several state honors from the regional authorities. He was also a one-time regional MP after winning elections in 2014. He has also received several music awards in France and Germany, while BBC Radio named his band the best ‘World Music’ performers in the Asian Pacific Region in 2002.
