Valerian Shotayevich Meladze (born 23 June 1965), known professionally as Valery Meladze, is a Georgian-born Russian singer and a Meritorious Artist of Russia. He is the brother of composer and producer Konstantin Meladze, who writes songs for him.

Valerian Shotayevich Meladze was born on 23 June 1965 in Batumi in the family of Shota and Nelly Meladze, who were engineers. He has a brother, Konstantin (1963), and a sister, Liana (1968). He went to music school and learned to play the piano. Since his parents, his grandmother and his grandfather were engineers, he decided to enter the Engineering Institute. entered the Nikolayev Shipbuilding Institute in Ukraine to study mechanical engineering of ship power plants. In 1985, Valeriy's brother started playing keyboard in the group "April". After some time, Valeriy started to sing in this group as a back-up vocalist, but this group broke up.

In 1989, Homemade album "April" reached the producer of the successful Soviet Union group Dialog. The producer liked voice, and joined Dialog as the lead singer, with Konstantin starting to write songs for the group. This culminated in the band's 1991 album, "Poseredine Mira" (Посерeдине Мира; Middle of the World).

Dialog's popularity had declined, however, and the group disbanded in 1991. In 1992, Valeriy joined Dialog's founder Kim Breitburg and guitarist Viktor Litvinenko to form Gruppa Dialog and, later, Mistiquana, but in 1993 he also launched his solo career. During The Moscow Tour, Valeriy and Konstantin met their future producer Evgeniy Friedland [ru]. Evgeniy helped to record the first of Valeriy's songs – "Ne Trevoz Mne Dushu Skripka" (Не тревожь мне душу, скрипка; Don't Disturb my soul, violin). As Meladze later stated in interviews, after the success of the song, Evgeniy asked Valeriy to change his last name (surname) from "Meladze" to "Lisov" or "Lisovskiy," in effect translating it from Georgian to Russian ("mela" and "lisa" both meaning "fox" in their respective languages). However, he refused to change his name.

Many labels didn't want to work with Meladze, "because this music was not modern...long and not happy." But in 1993 Alla Pugacheva heard their demo record, and she invited Valeriy to sing their song at "The Christmas Meeting" in Moscow. After his success there, Valeriy released his debut solo album "Sera" (Сера) on the music label "Souz." The eponymous "Sera" became relatively popular, with "Poserеdine Leta" (Посередине Лета; The Middle Of Summer) and "Noch' Pered Rozdestvom" (Ночь Перед Рождеством; Christmas Eve) also seeing significant success.

In end of 1995 Valeriy won two awards, Ovatsii and Zvezdy in nomination "Debut Of Year" and "The Best Singer of Year". In October 1996 his second studio album Posledniy romantik (The Last Romanticist) was released.

In early of 1997 was Valeriy gave 19 concerts in the biggest Russian cities. 7 and 8 March Valeriy sang in Olympiskiy, Moscow. In end of year was released first concert and video record album "Live Olympik Moscow".

In 1998, the brothers broke off their relationship with the producer Evgeniy Friendland and with label "Souz". But in January of that year, the third studio album Samba Belogo Motylka (Samba of the White Moth) was released. After a dispute with a producer, Valeriy changed his public image, he start to wear only formal clothes and the songs became more cruel and aggressive.