Introduction

• Participant(s): Citi Zēni
• Song: Eat Your Salad
  
• Writer(s): Dagnis Roziņš, Jānis Pētersons
• Composer(s): Jānis Jačmenkins (JJ Lush), Roberts Memmēns
• Broadcaster: LTV
  
• Social media:        
  
• Team review: 

In this year’s ‘Supernova” festival – the Latvian national final, the 6-members-group Citi Zēni could reach the first place with the funny song title “Eat Your Salad”. They could even beat the Latvian ESC legend Aminata.

The band has been founded at a song writing camp in Riga 2020 and consists of Jānis Pētersons (vocals), Dagnis Roziņš (vocals, saxophone), Reinis Višķeris (keyboard), Krišjānis Ozols (guitar), Roberts Memmēns (bass) and Toms Kagainis (drums). The music style is a mix of pop and funky street house music, the video clips are very cool: “Vienmēr kavēju” , “Parādi kas tas ir”  or “Skaistās kājas” . They normally sing in their Latvian native language and have cheeky lyrics and eccentric stage performances.

The song “Eat Your Salad” seems to be a funny song, well and it’s also going to presented like that, but it also has a serious background, it’s about environmental protection and should animate the viewers to become vegetarians and to stop polluting the world – save the planet.

The lyrics say this:

Zero waste, that is my jam
Save fuel and sell your truck
The karma comes for free and so does luck
All aboard the green Titanic
Let‘s sail the world and then cruise the Atlantic
No ice in the way, no need to panic
All the signs are there, let‘s go organic
Oh, when you eat your veggies

Let’s hope that the message comes through, when the band is rocking the stage in Turin. These guys are known for their extraordinary performances.

History

• Debut: 2000
• Participations: 22
• Victories: 1
• Finals: 10 (6 since 2004)
• Top 10: 4

The big surprise came in 2000, when Latvia took part for the first time in the Eurovision Song Contest. The ambitious indie-pop 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. Also interesting to see that two Baltic countries Estonia and Latvia had the honour to win and host the ESC after another. Unfortunately, Lithuania has never won the Eurovision Song Contest.

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. All three Baltic countries have a similar heritage, but are different in many ways.

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. Last year Samanta Tīna could not convince with the extraordinary song “The Moon Is Rising”, she came last in the semi-final.

Biggest successes

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

Video Nostalgia

• “Hello From Mars” | F.L.Y.
  Rank 24, Riga 2003
  
• “Questa Notte” | Bonaparti.lv
  Rank 16, Helsinki 2007
  
• “Cake To Bake” | Aarzemnieki
  Rank 13 (Semi-Final), Copenhagen 2014
  
  

First Rehearsal