On the 21 December, it was announced that Tamta will represent Cyprus for the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest. She has been heavily rumoured for Greece for many years, and now Cyprus has taken her to represent their country – much as they did with Eleni Foureira, last year.
Not only that, but her song has been announced, it’s called “Replay” and has been written by Alex P, Teddy Skye, Viktor Svensson, Kristoffer “Bonn” Fogelmark, and Albin Nedler. Eurovision fans will recognise the songwriter Alex P as he has written many previous Eurovision songs, including Eleni Foureira’s “Fuego” and Ivi Adamou’s “La La Love”.
As for Tamta, whose full name is Tamta Goduadze, well, she’s a well-known professional singer in Greece and Cyprus, having gained fame in 2003-2004 where she came second in the first and only series of Super Idol, which is the Greek version of the Idol franchise.
From there, she built up her career, dropping singles and becoming a household name. She went on to compete in the Greek national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 with the song “With Love”, where she placed third. This launched her into the charts in Greece, with that song as well as her follow-ups.
Rumours began to circulate in 2008, suggesting that Cyprus would choose her to represent them for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, whilst the media wanted her to represent Greece. Neither country chose her and she continued to build up her career with more single releases and she even dropped two albums, with a third being released in 2010. There have been a few times she almost represented Greece, notably in 2010 and 2018, but it didn’t pan out.
She built her career up so much that in 2014 she became a judge on the first and second season of the Georgian version of The X Factor, from there she switched to the the Greek version of the show in 2016 for seasons four and five before jumping ship back to the Georgian version in 2018 for their fifth season. Also, in 2018, she was a judge on the first season of the Greek edition of Project Runway.
Her musical talent goes even further as she has starred in a couple of musicals, Rent and Cabaret. She also voiced Princess Selenia for the Greek version of Arthur and the Minimoys.
She’s certainly a star to watch during the Eurovision Song Contest 2019, and if “Replay” is as good as Cyprus’ entry of 2018, as they have suggested, then Tamta has a real shot of doing one better than Eleni Foureira and manage to take the top spot and bring the Eurovision Song Contest to Cyprus, for the first time ever.
To win, Tamta will have to gain the most points out of all the entrants. Announced so far Srbuk for Armenia and Jonida Maliqi for Albania. The other countries are expected to reveal their acts in the forthcoming months.
The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest will be hosted at the Expo Tel Aviv in Israel after Netta won last year with the song “Toy”. The two Semi-Finals taking place on 14 May and 16 May with the Grand Final taking place on 18 May. A total of 42 countries will compete in the contest.