Shneider was born in Riga, Latvia (then Soviet Union), to a Jewish family. She proved musically gifted from an early age and both of her parents were musicians.\n', '

In the early 1970s she was a member of \'Sovremennik\', a state-run pop orchestra, that featured Natasha Shneider on vocals and piano, her first husband Serge Kapustin on guitar and percussion. Her brother Vladimir Shneider produced and played piano and keyboards for the \'Singing Hearts\', which was one of Russia\'s hottest groups in the mid-\'70s, whose output and sound was heavily controlled by the Soviet authorities. Vladimir Shneider recalled: "We\'d sing 37 songs about how good the Communist Party is, and at the end—if we were lucky — we were allowed to play a mellow song like Killing Me Softly or Ain\'t No Sunshine. But never rock."\n', '

In May 1976, Natasha Shneider, her husband Kapustin, and her brother Vladimir defected to the West, arriving in New York City without finances or connections. They took day jobs and played evening gigs around the city. In 1978 they arrived in Hollywood where they met Guy Costa, the head of Motown\'s Studio Operations, who introduced them to Berry Gordy, founder of Motown records. As a consequence of the meeting with Gordy they were signed to the label, reputedly the first Russian band to be on a major label. In June 1980 their newly named group, Black Russian, released an album of R&B styled pop that was well received by Billboard who highlighted the songs Mystified, Leave Me Now (which was later released as a single), Emptiness, New York City, and Love\'s Enough. The album was not a commercial success and Black Russian did not continue. Natasha Shneider and Serge Kapustin later divorced. \n', '

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