As Black Jewish Ukrainians, Fo Sho brought a unique perspective to their country’s music scene. Now displaced due to war with Russia, they’re more determined than ever to share it with the world.
It’s far from the first time the sisters have felt like outsiders. Even in a country with a diverse music scene that encompasses punk, EDM, troubadours, and hip-hop, Fo Sho stood out: In Betty’s words, they are proudly “Black Jewish Ukrainians” whose parents originally hailed from Ethiopia. Alongside peers like Alyona Alyona and Alina Pash, Fo Sho haveinjected a female sensibility into the fledgling Ukrainian hip-hop scene.
That stance is rooted in their home country and the way it pulled away from Russia, politically and culturally, after the 2014 revolution. But their message is also steeped in their own, sometimes rattling upbringing. The trio’s parents moved separately from Ethiopia to Ukraine in 1985 and met at medical school; their father went on to become a neurologist, while their mother a veterinarian.
Fortunately, says Betty, levels of tolerance had shifted dramatically in Ukraine in recent years. “I can’t compare my experience of being 12 to now,” she says. “Ukraine is so much better.” After the Eurovision spot, the sisters still encountered people who questioned whether they were actually Ukrainian because of their skin color, and wound up posting about it on their Instagram account: “Since being a Eurovision national team, we are being asked every day whether we are immigrants. Are we foreigners? … We have Ukrainian citizenship since our birth, we have learned English like everyone else, so these questions and comments are very strange to us.