Katarzyna Magdalena Rooijens (née Szczot; born 5 November 1967 in Warsaw[1]), professionally known as Kayah, is a Polish singer-songwriter performing a variety of music genres, including pop, soul, jazz, world[2] and dance.

Her other hits include "Fleciki", "Na językach", "Supermenka", "Testosteron", "Prócz ciebie, nic" with Polish singer Krzysztof Kiljański and "Po co" with Israeli musician Idan Raichel.

[9] In the early 2000s, Kayah co-founded her own record label, Kayax, which has since signed many successful artists and released numerous critically acclaimed albums.

[14] As a young girl, Kayah wanted to be an archaeologist[15] or a basketball player, and prior to musical career, she worked in a shop selling ties.

The same year, her first full-length eponymous album was released by Polskie Nagrania Muza, which consisted of material written by Maciej Zembaty, John Porter and Neil Black, yet originally intended for another artist.

[22][23] The latter's music video featured a guest appearance by Ice-T.[24] Zebra was a critical and commercial success, quickly receiving platinum certification and selling over 200,000 copies.

In 2002, she featured on Michał Żebrowski's album Poczytaj mi tato 2 in the song "Dobry potwór nie jest zły".

[40] The compilation fulfilled Kayah's contract with Sony BMG Music Entertainment Poland and the singer effectively parted ways with the label.

In late 2006, she released the EP with Christmas music Kolędy śpiewa Kayah and became the first artist in East-Central Europe to perform an acoustic concert as part of the MTV Unplugged series.

[41] The recording from the event was released in March 2007 as live CD and DVD MTV Unplugged, which reached number 4 in the albums chart[42] and received gold certification.

In 2012, Kayah performed at the Festival of Jewish Culture in Warsaw, collaborating with Bulgarian composer Atanas Valkov and various musicians of Polish, Ukrainian and Persian origins.

The event resulted in the album Transoriental Orchestra, released in November 2013, on which the singer performed traditional Jewish songs from different regions of Europe and the Middle East in a range of languages.

In November 2016, the singer released Gdy pada śnieg, an album consisting of traditional Christmas carols and two new songs co-written by herself.

[44] She teamed up with Israeli musician Idan Raichel on the single "Po co", released in spring 2017, which was a top 3 airplay hit in Poland.

[51] In autumn, she went on tour with Goran Bregović and released the single "Podatek od miłości" with Grzegorz Hyży to promote film of the same name.

She also guest featured in songs by various Polish artists: "Przejazdem" by Pectus, "Kocham cię" by Maria Sadowska, and "Nisko jest niebo" by Pezet.

In 2021, Kayah released the song "Nie dzielcie nas" with Krzysztof Iwaneczko and teamed up with Nick Sinckler on the dance single "Kochaj różnym być".

[55] On 5 August 1998, Kayah married Dutch-Polish TV producer Rinke Rooyens and gave birth to their son, Roch, on 1 December 1998.

The singer then was in a four-year relationship with Senegalese musician Pako Sarr, to whom she was reportedly engaged and planned to marry,[57] but the couple eventually broke up in 2015.