Latvia in Eurovision
Latvia debuted at Eurovision in the year 2000 and has competed every year since. But it's been a rocky history of making the Final, only qualifying 10 times out of their 23 entries. The last time we saw Latvia at the Grand Final was back in 2016 with Justs and his entry 'Heartbeat'.
So far Latvia has one win under their belt thanks to Marie N with 'I Wanna' back in 2002, which was only their third attempt at Eurovision. This makes Latvia one of only two baltic countries to ever win the contest, the other being Estonia the year before. In 2021, Latvia was represented by singer-songwriter Samanta Tīna with the song 'The Moon is Rising' which failed to qualify, coming in last place in its semi-final.
2022 entry: Citi Zēni - 'Eat Your Salad'
Semi-final: Citi Zēni will compete in position number 2 of semi-final 1
My Eurovision Scoreboard ranking: 31st
Odds to win ranking: 29th
(Rankings as of 10 April 2022)
About Citi Zēni
Latvian rap-pop band Citi Zēni (which translate to Other Boys in English) was formed at a songwriting camp just outside of the Latvian capital Riga in 2020. The band is made up of Jānis Pētersons on lead vocals, Dagnis Roziņš on the saxaphone, Reinis Višķeris on the keyboard, Krišjānis Ozols on guitar, Roberts Memmēns on the bass, and Toms Kagainis on the drums.
The band emerged on the Latvian music scene in 2021 with their debut album 'Suņi Iziet Ielās' ('Dogs Take To The Streets') and a string of singles. The album was met with critical acclaim and gained fans in their masses thanks to a number of their tracks going viral on TikTok. The band's signature is their cheeky lyrics, crazy performances and eclectic style they put into each of their projects.
About the song
Citi Zēni and their entry 'Eat Your Salad' has made a big splash since being selected to represent Latvia.
'Eat Your Salad' is a high energy funk-pop number all about the need for being eco-friendly, but it's the NSFW opening line that has caused the song to go viral. The band explain the cheeky lyrics are designed to make a hard topic easy to digest as well as fun to listen to. Lead singer Jānis wanted to make a song about the importance of eco-awarness that wasn't depressing, and after being inspired by a friend's shirt that had the now infamous line "Instead of meat, I eat veggies and p****" printed on it, 'Eat Your Salad' was born.
It has already been confirmed the song will cut out some of the cheeky lyrics for their Eurovision peformances to keep in line with the EBU's rules on provacative language.
How was Citi Zēni chosen for Eurovision?
The Latvian song selection has had a few alterations over the years but since 2015 the song and representative has been chosen through the national final 'Supernova'. Seventeen acts participated in the 2022 edition, with 11 of them advancing to the final.
Voting in the final of 'Supernova' was split 50/50 jury and televote each ranking the competing acts from 1st to 11th. Citi Zēni won both the jury and televote beating out fan-favourite and previous Latvian representative Aminata, who came second in the jury and third in the public vote. The band won the right to represent Latvia and are heading to Turin to fly the flag for their country.
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Citi Zēni will compete in the first semi-final on May 10 (European time) in Turin.