Introduction

• Participant(s): Serhat
• Song: "Say Na Na Na"
  
• Writer(s): Serhat, Mary Susan Applegate
• Composer(s): Serhat
• Broadcaster: SMRTV
  
• Social media:          
  
• Team review: 

Congratulations San Marino! For the 10th time San Marino participates in the Eurovision Song Contest. It has always been seen as an enrichment to have the microstate amongst the competitors. Mostly the composers or sings have not been coming from San Marino, so it’s a platform for international artists to be part of the ESC. Unfortunately, San Marino did not shape up very well in all those years, only once a qualification for the Grand Final could be achieved.

Ahmet Serhat Hacipasalioglu was born in Istanbul in 1964. He studied dentistry but very soon he discovered his passion for singing. Serhat has become a TV celebrity in Turkey, who is hosting several shows. He never gave up singing. He recorded the phenomenal song “Tango Deguise” with the ESC host from Brussels 1987: Viktor Lazlo. The following song “My Chocolate Flavor” also become a great success. The big breakthrough Serhat could achieve with his song “Je m’adore” recently which went #1 in the German DJ charts. Later on Serhat covered his own song “Tango Deguise” with the ESC winner Helena Paparizou. 

In 2016 Serhat had the honour to represent San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm. Unfortunately, his song “I Didn’t Know” could not qualify for the Grand Final and made the 12th place in the Semi Final.

This time, Serhat is presenting a fresh danceable song called “Say na na na”. Everything is self-composed and the song is an optimistic love song with a Latin rhythm and a catchy chorus. Let’s cross the fingers for Serhat again. Good luck!

History

• Debut: 2008
• Participations: 10
• Victories: 0
• Finals: 1
• Top 10: 0
• Chances for Top 10: 0%
• Chances for Final: 10%

San Marino has joined the Eurovision Song Contest in the year 2008, so it’s the 10th anniversary of San Marino in the ESC. With the song “Complice” by Miodio, San Marino made a wonderful debut. Unfortunately, San Marino came last – a truly undeserved 19th place in the Semi Final for the debut year. Only once San Marino made it into the Grand Final with Ralph Siegel’s composition “Maybe”, sung by Valentina Monetta in Copenhagen 2014. Last year Jessika feat. Jenifer Brening could not get into the Grand Final either with the song “Who We Are”.

This year it’s going to be the tenth time in the ESC for the small country located in the heart of Italy. Of course in such a small country with only 32.000 inhabitants the local music scene is not very big, this is dominated by the Italian music market. Therefore foreign composers have been invited mainly Ralph Siegel, who has composed five songs for San Marino in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017. And if this would not be interesting enough, Ralph’s muse Valentina Monetta had four trials. Valentina is the only person recently who had the chance to travel to four ESC’ from Baku over Malmö to Copenhagen, Vienna and Kiev. This concept did not work really, as the result was always disappointing. Maybe it’s due to the fact that San Marino has no lobby and nobody votes for it, or the quality of the songs did not match the taste of the juries and televoters.

In recent years also other micro states tried their luck in the ESC like Andorra and Monaco. None of them reached the Grand Finals unfortunately.
It was always said if San Marino is going to win the ESC someday the contest will be held in the Italian neighbour city Bologna.

Biggest successes

1x 24th place

• “Maybe (Forse)” (2014) - Valentina Monetta

Video Nostalgia

• “The Social Network Song” – Valentina Monetta , Rank 14 (Semi Final), 2012, Baku
• “Chain of Lights” - Michele Perniola & Anita Simoncini , Rank 16 (Semi Final), 2015, Vienna
  
• “Who We Are” – Jessika feat. Jenifer Brening , Rank 17 (Semi Final), 2018, Lisbon