Ivan Hilje, better known under his stage name Hiljson Mandela, is a Croatian rapper and singer-songwriter, and also a member of a hip hop trio KUKU$.
He is a son of Croatian opera singer Diana Hilje and showed his interest in music at an early age. In 2008, aged 16, he founded an alternative-rock band called Prazna Lepinja, sang and played a saxophone. In 2013, the band released their first studio album Danasutra.
Alongside his two friends from childhood – Ivan Godina, Mislav Kljenak and three former members, who later left – he founded a trap-based band KUKU$, which made them a pioneers of the same genre in Croatia.
In May 2022, he released his first solo studio album – Mandela Effect, which soon gained popularity in Croatia and regionally, especially because of viral songs such as "Cura S Kvarta", "Mbappé", "McLaren", "Neće K***c", "Lova" and others.
He won his first Cesarica award for collaboration with Croatian singer Zsa Zsa for their single "Ova Ljubav" for 2020. In 2022, he got a nomination for collaboration with Miach on her single "NLO", which became his second nomination for that award.
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiljson_Mandela) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode)