One of the first things that jumps out about Fima Chupakhin is that he loves to laugh. He has the kind of contagious, welcoming and easygoing attitude that rubs off on other people. His generally positive disposition flows into his passion for music. That passion, he says, started at an early age.
“There was a tiny toy piano in our apartment. I just remember banging on the keys, I’m like, ‘Oh it produces sound, great!’” Chupakhin said. “Maybe I was so annoying that my mom would be like, ‘Oh my God, kiddo, all right let’s get him to a music school so he’ll be out of the house and do this not on a toy piano but maybe on the real thing.’”
Chupakhin doesn’t come from a musical family — but his mother, Larisa, liked listening to music at home. Sometimes she would listen to the Beatles, but she mostly listened to pop songs like those by the most famous Soviet pop star Alla Pugacheva.
“She would sing often, sing two of the songs,” Chupakhin said. “One was [Millions Of Scarlet Roses] another was, “Call Me [with You],” something like that. At the time that was common for almost every household.”
But Chupakhin didn’t just grow up with Soviet pop songs. His mom listened to Ukrainian music, as well. That informed his musical journey and plays out in his music today.
“She just loved the idea of Ukraine. She always loved Ukrainian music. She would sing [Chervona Ruta],” he said of his mother. “It’s like one of those songs, aside from Alla Pugacheva, that she would sing rather often.”
When he was in music school, Chupakhin listened to any music he could get his hands on. From the early ‘90s, when Ukraine became independent, all the way to the early 2000s, he gravitated towards rock. He listened to Nirvana, but also to Ukrainian bands like Vopli Vidopliassova.
Music wasn’t just a hobby; it also became a tool to get out of Kryvyi Rih, the city in central Ukraine where he grew up.
“It’s an industrial town, you know, people work at a factory, [there are] a couple of mines that are still working,” Chupakhin said. “It’s dirty — you know we had rains that are dusty, some kind of sparkling dust, that was our rain, because of steel factories.”
But there were some opportunities to break out of that industrial jungle. Famously, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also from Kryvyi Rih, and that’s where he got his start as a comedian well before going into politics. Around that time, when Chupakhin was a teenager, his piano skills began to rapidly improve.
“When I practiced, I would open the doors. So, we had a little balcony. We had sort of a backyard, well the entire courtyard would listen to the music, and they would scream, ‘Yo Fima, c’mon, give us some Queen man!’”
Chupakhin said he liked the attention and the idea of people enjoying his music. At the time, he said his piano skills improved rapidly, so he felt more confident. That development as a musician opened opportunities. It took him to a music conservatory in Kharkiv. And later, in 2012, it brought him to the United States when he was granted a Fulbright scholarship. By that time, Chupakhin’s main musical obsession was jazz.
“Jazz became the music that I felt wow, I can be so free,” Chupakhin said. “And somehow it had this aura of hipness to me. I wanted to be hip, I guess, and what was the hip thing, playing jazz, yes.”
Chupakhin soon became immersed in the New York jazz scene, while also maintaining a strong connection to Ukraine — he’d often travel back and forth between the two. He was always working, teaching music, playing live, composing soundtracks and producing albums.
By 2022, Chupakhin had been living in New York for nearly a decade — that was also the year when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“We just started calling all our friends, asking what’s happening. And ever since that, I’m living this kind of double life,” Chupakhin said. “I feel like, on the outside, I’m friendly and smiley and whatever but sometimes deep down, it’s like, it’s getting hard because I feel like I’m in this kind of limbo in between.”
Living in between the US and Ukraine had been the norm for Chupakhin, but soon he realized that his life was most centered in New York. For about a year, beginning with the full-scale invasion, he said on many levels it was hard for him to function in the US, because his mind was always on Ukraine.
“Because I physically and geographically live here, it doesn’t mean that I’m intending to lose any kinds of connections, it actually even grew stronger,” Chupakhin said.
In May, Chupakhin’s band, the Fima Trio, came out with its debut album, “Hymn for the Fallen.”
“It’s my own reflection on what’s been happening in my country, in the world, with me,” Chupakhin said. “Maybe some of the dreams have fallen, maybe some of the plants did not [bloom], but also, so many people died. But not getting too dark, though, this track to me is more uplifting, because I believe that whatever dies, then grows.”
According to Chupakhin, at this point, many Ukrainians have learned to live with the reality of Ukraine still being at war. Sometimes it drifts into the background, and yet it’s always there.
With the release of the new album, Chupakhin said he’s trying to slow down and acknowledge his sense of accomplishment and think about how far his music has taken him.