Festivali i Këngës 54 has come and gone, but Besa Krasniqi is here to stay. Ahead of Albania’s national selection, she emerged as a fan favourite with her number “Liroje Zemrën” (Free Your Heart). She topped both our FiK54 fan poll and our Wiwi Jury, owing to her gorgeous vocals and modern track. Even though she didn’t take the title, she did pick up thousands of new fans and is now our favourite Swedish singer of Albanian descent.
She caught up with wiwibloggs guest correspondent Erdi Tejeci ahead of her performance, telling us about what it was like to adapt her song to an orchestra, her love of African music, and, of course, her FiK54 song. “It is about you not being alone,” she says. “You have to let go, be free, be yourself. Some people think it’s about the strength of God — and it can be that — but it’s all about how you relate to the song.”
The Swedish-born songstress also discusses Sweden’s epic national selection for Eurovision. “I always watch Melodifestivalen. Someone asked me before, ‘Why don’t you compete in Sweden?’ And it just came to me, ‘Why didn’t I?’ I don’t know. Maybe next year.”
Hopefully FiK has helped put Besa on Christer Björkman’s radar. SVT recently profiled Besa in an article titled, “Teacher in Sweden, Star in Albania”.
It’d be amazing if she competed for Melodifestivalen 2017 !
Moreover, it could be a good thing to see her qualified for SF1/2/3/4 of MF => The results would be worthier than they were in FiK -_-
I’d love to see her in Melodifestivalen!!
her entry for me sounds a tad bit out of place in the festivali i kenges line-up because it sounds too “modern”. *shudders* the winning song represents albania better.
Yes please! The little snippet of her song in English sounds spectacular.
Shame she wasn’t top 10. Before she was like my 3rd fav but her live performance wasnt the best partly due the song not fitting with the orchestra. I would love to see her in melodifestivalen because like Denis said it would be a welcome change in tone for the selection.
Why not? We need some fresh faces to cancel out all the Bengtzings, Clamps and similar.Could 2017 be her year?
Plus I don’t think there have ever been a singer of Albanian descent here so it would interesting based on that.