Ayushi
Alessandro Mahmoud aka Mahmood has been selected to represent Italy at Eurovision Song Contest 2019. With immense support from the juries, the singer-songwriter won 69th Sanremo Music Festival and will now be representing Italy with his song “Soldi”.
But Mahmood’s selection was not an easy ride. While the singer received support from the juries, the political atmosphere in the country showed a different side to the story. A lot of political personnel did not support the singer’s participation, describing the selection process as the “imbalance” between the minority jury group and the viewers who take up the biggest share in the viewership.
But Mahmood had made it clear that his song aims to tell a story and it seems that his message has been felt by the music listeners. As reported by WIWI Bloggs,
“The song has clocked up 4.6 million listens on Spotify. ‘Soldi’ is also the No.1 song in Spotify’s Italy Top 50 chart, and has even reached No.41 in Spotify’s global Top 50, facing stiff competition from Ariana Grande’s new album tracks.”
With 7 million views, the R&B track has also found its place on global music charts. It will be interesting to see how well Italy will perform at the Eurovision.
Announced acts so far are Srbuk for Armenia, Tamta for Cyprus, Jonida Maliqi for Albania, Eliot for Belgium, Miki for Spain, Serhat for San Marino, Duncan Laurence for The Netherlands, Tamara Todevska for FYR Macedonia, Michela Pace for Malta, Bilal Hassani for France, Lake Malawi for the Czech Republic, PÆNDA for Austria, Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman for Finland. Michael Rice for the United Kingdom, and Sergey Lazarev for Russia. 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 will take 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.
