Netta Banana! Reigning Eurovision winner speaks about new single and her 2019 favourites

It’s only a matter of days until we crown a new Eurovision champion, but that is not putting the current winner down! In an interview at her new house, Netta opened up about her experience and gave us insights on the days leading up to the upcoming edition of Eurovision, as well as her new, recently released single, “Nana Banana“, which she will perform live for the first time on the night of the final.

Netta interview

Netta was as bubbly as ever, opening up about her excitement for her new single. There are also other reasons for her excitement. “I’m super excited for my third single and I’m excited to sing it before Madonna. I’m opening for Madonna!”

The song stems from the pressure of expectations put on us by others and it is about expressing the freedom of doing what you want. “There are so many expectations about what song to make and what to add to appeal to the crowd and it didn’t feel right. A lot of ‘do this, do that’. It seems to be comfortable to do nothing, but you got to see that you can’t keep to the expectations, you gotta do you.”

The “Toy” singer has also opened up about how she felt about representing Israel at an international competition. “I’m not a diplomat, I’m not a politician, I’m not justifying anyone, I’m just saying we are in a big problem and I’m inviting people to come and solve it. But let’s keep Eurovision about bringing hearts and people together.”

The current champion has also told us about the acts she likes the most in this year’s contest and praised her successor for Israel. “I love Kobi Marimi — “Home” is a very good song for him. While it may be difficult to give an identity to a singer without songs, I feel they gave him the one that it’s the most like him.”

Her favourites of this year are ever-changing between three songs. “I love Miki’s “La Venda” and Mahmood is incredible. Mahmood can express so much pain through his lyrics and I don’t need to understand his language to get the backstory he has.” However, her third favourite song is quite an interesting choice. “I loved Maruv with “Siren Song”. It’s always changing between the three of them.”

Netta opened the first semi-final with “Toy” and will feature in the interval act of the grand final with “Nana Banana”. You can listen to “Nana Banana” below.