Ukrainian duo heads to the Eurovision Music Contest with a message: We’re nonetheless right here
KYIV, Ukraine — Even amid battle, Ukraine finds time for the glittery, pop-filled Eurovision Music Contest. Maybe now much more than ever.
Ukraine’s entrants within the pan-continental music competitors — the feminine duo of rapper alyona alyona and singer Jerry Heil — set off from Kyiv for the competitors on Thursday. In wartime, which means a protracted prepare journey to Poland, from the place they may journey on to subsequent month’s competitors in Malmö, Sweden.
“We have to be seen for the world,” Heil advised The Related Press at Kyiv prepare station earlier than her departure. “We have to present that even now, through the battle, our tradition is growing, and that Ukrainian music is one thing ready for the world” to find.
“We’ve got to unfold it and share it and present individuals how robust (Ukrainian) men and women at the moment are,” added alyona, who spells her title with all decrease case letters.
Ukraine has lengthy used Eurovision as a type of cultural diplomacy, a method of exhibiting the world the nation’s distinctive sound and magnificence. That mission turned extra pressing after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that Ukraine existed as a definite nation and folks earlier than Soviet occasions.
Ukrainian singer Jamala received the competition in 2016 — two years after Russia illegally seized the Crimean Peninsula — with a music in regards to the expulsion of Crimea’s Tatars by Stalin in 1944. People-rap band Kalush Orchestra took the Eurovision title in 2022 with “Stefania,” a music in regards to the frontman’s mom that turned an anthem to the war-ravaged motherland, with a haunting chorus on a conventional Ukrainian wind instrument.
Alyona and Heil will carry out “Maria & Teresa,” an anthemic ode to inspiring ladies. The title refers to Mom Theresa and the Virgin Mary, and the lyrics embody the chorus, in English: “All of the divas had been born because the human beings” — individuals we regard as saints had been as soon as flawed and human like the remainder of us.
Heil mentioned the message is that “all of us make errors, however your actions are what outline you.”
And, alyona added: “with sufficient vitality you’ll be able to win the battle, you’ll be able to change the world.”
The music blends alyona’s punchy rap fashion with Heil’s hovering melody and distinctly Ukrainian vocal fashion.
“Alyona is a superb rapper, she has this highly effective vitality,” Heil mentioned. “And I’m extra comfortable.”
“However nice melodies,” alyona added. “So she creates all of the melodies and I simply leap in.”
Ukraine has been on the forefront of turning Eurovision from a contest dominated by English-language pop songs to a extra numerous and multilingual occasion. Jamala sang a part of her music within the Crimean Tatar language, whereas Kalush Orchestra sang and rapped in Ukrainian.
Ukraine’s Eurovision win in 2022 introduced the nation the precise to host the next yr, however due to the battle the 2023 contest was held within the English metropolis of Liverpool, which was bedecked in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags for the event — a celebration of Ukraine’s spirit and tradition.
Thirty-seven nations from throughout Europe and past — together with Israel and Australia — will compete in Malmö in two Eurovision semifinals Might 7 and 9, adopted by a Might 11 last. Ukraine at present ranks amongst bookmakers’ prime 5 favorites alongside the likes of singer Nemo from Switzerland and Croatian singer-songwriter Child Lasagna.
Russia, a long-time Eurovision competitor, was kicked out of the competition over the invasion.
The Ukrainian duo caught a prepare after holding a information convention the place they introduced a fundraising drive for a college destroyed by a Russian strike.
The duo is becoming a member of with charity fundraising platform United 24 to lift 10 million hryvnia (about $250,000) to rebuild a college within the village of Velyka Kostromka in southern Ukraine that was destroyed by a Russian rocket in October 2022. The college’s 250 pupils have been unable to attend class since then, counting on on-line studying.
From the rubble, a instructor managed to rescue one of many college’s treasured possessions — a big picket key historically introduced to first grade college students to represent that training is the important thing to their future.
Alyona and Heil have additionally embraced the important thing as a logo, sporting T-shirts lined in small metallic housekeys.
“It’s a logo of one thing which perhaps some individuals in Ukraine received’t have, as a result of so many individuals misplaced their houses,” Heil mentioned. “However they’re holding these keys of their pockets, and so they’re holding the hope.”
