Jaroslav Filip was born in the Slovak village of
Hontianske Moravce to a family of teachers; he had three younger siblings. He played the piano from the age of seven and developed a love of radio early on. In the 1960s, he studied at the Bratislava Conservatory and became an admirer of rock musician
Dežo Ursiny and his
Beatmen. He later went on to study in
Žilina, and after graduating in 1968, he took a job with
Slovenská televízia as a camera assistant, back in Bratislava. Around this time, he began getting involved in the music scene, playing with
Peter Lipa's band Blues Five. He also got married, performed at Divadlo u Rolanda theatre, composed stage plays and film music, worked in radio, began hosting TV shows, and teamed up with longtime collaborators
Milan Lasica and
Július Satinský. Following the
Velvet Revolution in 1989, Filip became a prominent humorist, both through his radio and television shows, in collaboration with such personalities as
Stano Radič,
Rasťo Piško,
Miroslav Noga,
Štefan Skrúcaný, and
Zuzana Tlučková. His content often included political satire, particularly targeting former prime minister
Vladimír Mečiar. He was an eager promoter of new technologies, especially mobile phones and the internet, at a time when their penetration in Slovakia was still low. He actively participated in email forums, both national and foreign, and authored the first email drama. In 1997, together with Róbert Dyda, he founded the first Slovak internet magazine, titled
Sieťovka. He was also an avid computer gamer and published computer game articles and reviews in
Riki magazine since 1994. In the 1990s, Filip worked with singer
Richard Müller, helping him record five solo albums. Despite having a long musical career, Filip didn't release any original material until his 1996 debut,
Cez okno, whose lyrics were written by Müller. The same year, he published
Meditation for Piano and two years later,
Ten čo hrával s Dežom, a tribute album to Ursiny recorded with
Andrej Šeban on guitar,
Oskar Rózsa on bass, and
Marcel Buntaj on drums. Müller, again, wrote the lyrics. ==Personal life==