Introduction

• Participant(s): Omar Naber
• Song: "On My Way"
• Writer(s): Omar Naber
• Composer(s): Omar Naber
• Broadcaster: RTVSLO
• Social media:
• Team review: 

This year the Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO has held a national final called EMA like in previous years. The show was arranged in a very glamourous way in a big arena. In the final, the Slovenian singer Omar Naber, who has already represented Slovenia exactly 12 years ago in Kiev with “Stop” could with a tight majority. Unfortunately, Omar did not reach the Grand Final that year, but now he is having his second chance with the song “On My Way”.

Omar Naber, whose original name is Omar Kareem was born in Ljubljana in 1981. Interesting to know that his father comes from Jordan. Omar studied dental technics but also learned to play the piano and guitar. With his band Kareem and in solo appearance has been touring around in clubs and visited 27 countries and gave more than 900 gigs. Omar is commuting between Ljubljana and London to widen his popularity. Nevertheless Omar tried to represent Slovenia several times, but failed in the EMA: 2009 with “I Still Carry On”, 2011 with “Bistvo skrito je očem” and 2014 with “I Won’t Give Up”. Furthermore he tried to enter the Swiss national final with “Take Me Far”.

With this year’s entry “On My Way” Omar is confident to improve the result from Kiev 2005. He has kept the song 12 years in a cache to unveil it in the right moment, this special moment seems to be now. The song is a smooth almost melancholic power ballad with a great heightening. The stage appearance of Omar is always solid and self-confident. Let’s cross our fingers for Omar.

History

• Debut: 1993
• Participations: 23
• Victories: 0
• Finals: 13 (4 since 2004)
• Top 10: 3
• Chances for Top 10: 14 %
• Chances for Final: 31 %

This year in Kiev, Slovenia will have its 23rd entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. In the year 1993 there has been the first only pre-ESC, which was held in Ljubljana. The participating countries in this pre-selection were Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Slovenia. Only three songs could qualify for the Millstreet ESC those were Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia. The debut song “Tih Dezeven Dan” by 1X Band only reached the 22nd place in Millstreet. Nevertheless the participation of Slovenia brought a huge public interest. Slovenia was among the top 3 countries, when the Eurovision Song Contest has opened to a wider scale of participating countries.

As one of the former ex-Yugoslav countries, Slovenia can look back to an additional 27-years-old history of Yugoslavian entries, where one victory with “Rock me” by Riva in 1989 could be celebrated. The Slovenes have participated since then with great enthusiasm and put every effort in well-chosen songs of high quality with an international standard.

Slovenia is the only country from the ex-Yugoslav countries which does not benefit from the “Balkan Block Voting” like Croatia, Serbia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Since the Semi Finals have been introduced in 2004, Slovenia could only qualify four times out of thirteen. Last year the Slovenian entry “Blue and Red” by ManuElla did not reach the Grand Final in Stockholm.