Eurovision 2026: Meet Azerbaijan’s JIVA and her song Just Go
- Joel Grace
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
We profile the 2026 entry from Azerbaijan including details on the artist, song, how it was chosen, odds, fan reaction and how the nation has fared at Eurovision.
Despite only making their Eurovision debut in 2008, Azerbaijan quickly established itself as one of the Contest’s strongest modern participants – earning a top 10 finish in seven of their 17 appearances.
Azerbaijan achieved a lot of early success, famously winning the contest in 2011 with Ell & Nikki’s Running Scared. The country also secured a string of high placements throughout the 2010s, including a second place finish in 2013 with Farid Mammadov’s Hold Me.
In recent years, however, Azerbaijan’s results have been more mixed, with the nation failing to qualify in their last three attempts, interrupting their earlier consistency.
Can 2026 artist JIVA return Azerbaijan to the Eurovision Grand Final spotlight with Just Go?
You can find out more about JIVA and her song below!
2026 entry: JIVA – Just Go
Azerbaijan will compete in the second semi-final, performing in second position in the running order
My Eurovision Scoreboard ranking: 35th
Odds to win ranking: 35th
(Rankings as of 21 April 2026)
About the artist
Jamila Hashimova, known professionally as JIVA, was born in 1982 in Moscow, and is an Azerbaijani singer-songwriter who has been steadily building her profile on the Azeri pop scene.
Best recognised as the winner of season 3 of The Voice of Azerbaijan in 2025, JIVA is becoming known for her strong and emotive vocal delivery that aims for international appeal.
Just Go marks her first major international stage appearance, after releasing a handful of non-album singles across the past five years.
About the song
Written by Fuad Javadov, Just Go is a ballad performed in English and Azeri that explores JIVA’s experience of moving on from a toxic relationship.
The song is built on deeply emotional lyrics, expressing the pain and heartbreak from an unfaithful relationship. It then builds to gaining strength and insight after being determined not to allow herself to be hurt again.
The anthemic chorus has a strong melodic hook that is perfectly designed for the Eurovision stage.
Three weeks ago, JIVA released a rock version of the song, which has many people talking about the possible replacement of the ballad version for the rock version.
How was JIVA chosen for Eurovision?
JIVA was selected internally by Azerbaijan’s broadcaster ITV as part of its traditional Eurovision selection process.
After reviewing 186 submissions and narrowing the field down to 18 artists for an audition, JIVA and Just Go were chosen to represent Azerbaijan at Eurovision 2026, with the entry reportedly standing out for its commercial appeal and staging potential.
On her selection, JIVA said:
“I’m honoured to represent Azerbaijan. This song is very personal to me, and I can’t wait to share it on the Eurovision stage.”
Azerbaijan will compete in the first semi-final of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest on 12 May 2026 in Vienna.
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Nice profile of JIVA and Azerbaijan's Eurovision journey! The detail about her winning The Voice of Azerbaijan and the competitive selection from 186 submissions really shows how much preparation goes into picking the right entry. Just Go's emotional lyrics and anthemic chorus should translate well to the Eurovision stage in Vienna. By the way, for anyone archiving contest details and artist bios, neural-network based document processing tools can be a great help for digitizing old materials.
Great article on Azerbaijan's Eurovision journey and JIVA's path to the contest! The detail about her winning The Voice of Azerbaijan and being chosen from 186 entries really highlights how competitive the selection process is. It will be exciting to see how Just Go performs on stage in Vienna. By the way, for anyone who wants to save this article, pdftolink.io is a handy tool for turning web pages into shareable links.
Great profile of JIVA and her journey to Eurovision! The promotional images really help tell her story. For anyone working with digital assets like these, a free online image size checker is handy for ensuring images load correctly across different platforms.
Azerbaijan's Eurovision history is so impressive, especially their early wins! It makes me wonder if they use tools like photo edit ai to make their promotional photos pop for the contest.
This profile gives a great overview of Trees Hate You Comments and JIVA's Eurovision journey. The background on their contest history is really helpful context.