Introduction

• Participant(s): Samanta Tīna
• Song: The Moon Is Rising
  
• Writer(s): Samanta Tina, Aminata Savadogo, Oskars Uhaņs
• Composer(s): Samanta Tina, Aminata Savadogo, Oskars Uhaņs
• Broadcaster: LTV
  
• Social media:      
  
• Team review: 

The Latvian singer Samanta Tīna is also one of the lucky singer from last year, who got another chance to perform this year instead. Last year her song “Still Breathing” has been discussed controversy. This time she is putting everything on one card and “The Moon Is Rising” is a lot stronger. Her dream to sing at the Eurovision Song Contest finally comes true.

Samanta Tīna, whose real name is Samanta Poļakova was born in Tukums, close to Riga. She took part in several contests and urgently wanted to go to the Eurovision Song Contest. She took part almost every year in the national final in Latvia, altogether six times and sometimes even with two songs, furthermore two times even in Lithuania! Respect!

Have a look at Samanta’s songs:

• 2012 “I Want You Back" together with Dāvids Kalandija – in the final
• 2012 “For Father” – second song, not in the final
• 2013 “I Need a Hero” (2nd place)
• 2013 “Hey Chiki – Mama” in Lithuania, but not in the final
• 2014 “Stay” - third place 
• 2016 “We Live for Love” – not in the final 
• 2016 “The Love is forever” – in the final, but withdrawn 
• 2017 “Tavo oda” – in Lithuania not in the final 

The new song “The Moon Is Rising” is also about female empowerment, admirable women, who should be appreciated as they are, even how different they are and it even seems that there is an invocation to all women starting a kind of revolution:

If you got something to say,
Say it to my face!
The queen of the night is coming
The blood moon is rising

The video clip shows her as the “Queen of the Night”, who is going to come when the blood moon is rising. The choreography is well-made and this time there is no dub-step included in the song. The song appears a bit crazy and has a certain coolness. Optically this is something to watch, but Russia is having a similar topic this year: women’s rights. This is probably Samanta’s strongest song.

History

• Debut: 2000
• Participations: 21
• Victories: 1
• Finals: 10 (6 since 2004)
• Top 10: 4
• Chances for Top 10: 19%
• Chances for Final: 35%

The big surprise was came in 2000, when Latvia took part for the first time in the Eurovision Song Contest. The fresh and innovative group Brainstrom have brought fresh air in the contest. With the debut song “My Star” a wonderful third place could be achieved. This has been topped two years later, when Marie N. could win with her sexy dance performance “I Wanna”. For the first time Latvia was able to win the ESC. This was a little surprise as well, as nobody expected Marie N. to win in Tallinn.

The following ESC 2003 took place in the wonderful capital of Latvia: Riga. Latvia describes itself as “the land that sings” which origins in the long singing tradition which takes place in singing festivals all over the country. This can also be said from the neighbour countries Estonia and Lithuania. Which does not automatically mean that the quality is always on the same level.

From 2009 until 2014 Latvia could not reach the Grand Final anymore, even if the Latvian songs seem to be contemporary, but a lovely young girl named Aminata could impress everybody with her self-composed song “Love Injected” and brought back a lot of Eurovision enthusiasm to Latvia. She made an amazing 6th place. The year after Aminata worked as a composer for “Heartbeat” which was sung by Justs, which came 15th in the Stockholm. After that the stroke of luck ended, no Latvian song from that on made into the Grand Final anymore. For Latvia the chance to reach the Grand Final is about 35%. The chances to reach a Top10 position is slightly decreasing as well and is now at 19%.

Biggest successes

• 1x 1st place
  “Wanna” I Marie N (Tallinn 2002)
• 1x 3rd place
  ”My Star” |BrainStorm (Stockholm 2000)

Video Nostalgia

• “My Star” | Brainstorm
  Rank 3, Stockholm 2000
• “The War Is Not Over” | Walter & Kazha
  Rank 6, Kiev 2005
• “What For?” | Aisha
  Rank 17 (Semi-Final), Oslo 2010