‘Get a load of this little brat’ Meet Øneheart, the small-town Russian teenager more popular on Spotify than Tchaikovsky

One of the most streamed Russian musicians on Spotify today is a teenager from the Tambov region named Dmitry Volynkin, whose ambient compositions have been played hundreds of millions of times and generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties. Working under the musical alias “Øneheart,” Volynkin and his friend Yevgeny “Reidenshi” Chirkov are the minds behind the electronic hit “Snowfall,” a track with nearly 800 million Spotify plays and 59 million YouTube views.

Volynkin recently spoke to Forbes Russia correspondent Khalima Mirsiyapova and revealed some details about his rapid rise in the electronic music scene. 

Volynkin described himself as a straight-A student from a small town who avoided the drugs and alcohol that appealed to many of his peers. When he was nine, his parents enrolled him in music school to study the piano. Volynkin graduated early and didn’t pursue a career as a professional pianist, but he developed an interest in music theory that would later inform his ambient compositions.

The name “Øneheart” came about as Volynkin tried to adapt “Onelove” into something original. Upon realizing that an African group had already used the name, he slashed the O for a dash of flair. 

Øneheart started earning money in 2020 when Volynkin was just 14 years old. He released tracks on small labels and through distributors like DistroKid and RepostNetwork and also published music on Bandcamp, where he could earn payments for downloads. 

Volynkin split the proceeds evenly with his collaborators. Before long, this early work generated a steady weekly income of $300–$400, which Volynkin used to buy gifts for his parents (for example, he once pooled his money with his father to buy his mother a coffee maker). He also invested the profits back into the work, upgrading his music equipment. 

Volynkin told Forbes that he became especially hooked on calming, atmospheric music in the summer of 2020 when he lost his great-grandmother at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The music helped him cope, and he was inspired to create some himself.

The next year, Volynkin connected with Yevgeny “Reidenshi” Chirkov through messages on Discord, and the two collaborated on what would become the hit track “Snowfall.” Once it was finished, Volynkin pitched it to the British label Dreamscape, which he’d been “chasing” for roughly a year. To his surprise, this demo track was a hit.

Ali Kayani, the co-founder of the record label Kurate Music, Dreamscape’s parent company, told Forbes: “We took a risk because we believed in [Volynkin] and thought he might resonate with listeners.”

Under Volynkin’s contract with Dreamscape, the record label collects half the streaming service payouts (typically $3–$5 for every 1,000 streams) and, in return, promotes the track by placing it with genre influencers. A popular, luckily-timed song that reaches these individuals’ large audiences gains organic views and has the potential to “go viral.” Kayani said Dreamscape spends an average of $5,000 to promote a single track and invests more if it becomes a hit. Volynkin credits the British label’s promotion campaign on TikTok with “breathing life into the track.”

Volynkin told Forbes he’s received multiple offers — some more than $1 million — to buy his entire music catalog. Even Sony Music and Universal Music (two of the largest recording companies in the world) have reached out. But Volynkin has refused to sign any exclusive contracts, comparing the arrangement to “slavery” and pointing out that the deals are often structured to force musicians to pay back what labels can’t recoup in profits. With Dreamscape, Øneheart has non-exclusive terms: each release is a separate contract, and Volynkin is free to release music with any other partners.

Øneheart has played for listeners around the world, but Volynkin told Forbes that he’s reluctant to attract unwanted attention personally. “I monitor the comments on my posts, and once I saw someone write something like, ‘Get a load of this little brat, while I work myself to the bone on the assembly line.’ It really hurt, so I told myself I don’t want to talk about [my earnings],” he explained. 

Based on Spotify’s average payouts and Volynkin’s profit-sharing deal with Dreamscape and his collaborators, Forbes estimates that “Snowfall” netted him more than $600,000 — and this doesn’t account for revenue collected on other streaming platforms. Yuri Kiselev, the co-founder of the music label Rocket Group, told Forbes that he thinks Øneheart is capable of earning between $200,000 and $350,000 per quarter. 

In September 2023, at his parents’ insistence that he “find a profession,” Volynkin enrolled in a university to study law. (He declined to reveal at which school he’s now a student.) Volynkin says he hopes the legal training will be useful for parsing future music contracts. He recently collaborated with the mobile operator Yota to create a music video, though he again declined to disclose the financial details.

Volynkin’s father, Ilya, has also launched a music career, relying on his son’s help to create his own ambient electronic tracks. Volynkin Sr. even quit his day job as a journalist and devoted himself full-time to churning out tunes. Under the alias “leadwave,” he, too, is working with Dreamscape. Ilya’s most popular track — “memories” — has been played 78 million times on Spotify.