Armenia's Ladaniva was the last act to be revealed for Eurovision song contest 2024 when AMPTV announced their (already rumored) entry on March 9, 2024 and four days later their entry Jako was confirmed as well. And brings Armenian back to the contest!
Ladaniva is a world music duo made of Armenian singer Jaklin Baghdasaryan (27) and French multi instrumentalist Louis Thomas (37). They met in Lille, France in 2018 in a jam session in a music bar in Vieux-Lille. Jaklin grew up in Minsk, Belarus before moving to France with her mother in 2014. Thomas comes from a family of musicians and is a accomplished jazz musician.
They started releasing music on Youtube during the Covid-19 pandemic and soon reached success first among Armenian community, later also elsewhere. Their third video Kef chilini reached 18 million views in a few months. They released their debut album in September 2023 and their entry Jako comes from it. Their music is a happy mixture of traditional songs from Armenia, Russia and the Balcans with music from Africa, Latin America and Reunion Island thrown in with their own compositions influenced by all that. Besides Armenian they sing also in French.
So, what do I think? When Ladaniva's name was heavily rumored I did have a quick check on them and was quite thrilled by their videos and mixture of songs. When Jako was confirmed I wasn't so enthusiastic anymore. It feels more like an album filler and indeed it is FIFTH release from the album, not it's lead single or a strong follow up. But fifth! And it does sound like one. This said, it's a fun track and it's great it's in Armenian, now let's wait and see how they bring it live on stage.
In our Home Jury Armenia scored mainly lower than 6.....
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