Over the first two nights of Festivali i Këngës 59, Mirud served ethno-bop eleganza. Putting his unique swerve on a matador look, he dove into black and gold on Monday, only to turn up as a heavenly vision in white on Tuesday. Versatile? Yes he most certainly is.
Ahead of filming for the grand final, Mirud kindly met up with Wiwiblogger Erdi to discuss his motivation for returning to the contest after his last appearance at FiK 57.
“I actually wasn’t planning to do that, but I decided to do it because I was getting messages from the Eurofans,” he says. “I was getting messages every single day from the Albanian fans that I have asking me to come back. So I was not planning at all to come, but when I wrote ‘Nëse vdes’ I knew that it was material that I needed to send to Festivali i Këngës, so I decided to come back because I felt like it’s a great representation of the music that I make.”
The song came to him during lockdown as he explored the music of his homeland from his current home in the United States.
“During quarantine I spent a lot of time listening to different styles of music in Kosovo,” he says. “I got really inspired by Nexhmije Pagarusha. I really felt like writing a song, as sort of like a dedication to the music where we come from, which is Kosovo, and the city where I come from, Prizren. I really got inspired by all the different artists from Kosovo to do this performance.”
Has he thought about translating it into English if he wins and gets to go to Eurovision?
“This is causing me anxiety thinking about that. I think it will stay in Albanian, because I love the way it sounds in Albanian. I think it would completely lose its meaning if I translated it into English. So if I do end up winning, which I hope so, I will keep it in Albanian.”
Question about Mirud: Are those outfits part of his gimmick or they are traditional Albanian clothes? I want to know, forgive my ignorance.
No, those outfits are not traditional Albanian clothes
Why so many articles about this guy?
We know who Wiwi is backing!
Ever heard of social distancing? Or wearing mask properly? Y’all can do better and don’t be virus spreaders.
Every non English song translated into English loses its meaning.
I would love to see him as the winner of FiK 59 🙂
What’s the point in wearing a face mask if you are not doing it correctly ?
It annoys me a lot -_-
Mirud to win then
Lithuania has released the list of participants!
Gabrielius and the Roop are in! Other names are unknown to me but there is some potential.
The Roop has won then, all second chance sympathy votes coming, same for Uku in eesti laul i hope
well crossing my fingers for the Roop, but in Estonia I literally praying everyday that Uku doesn’t win and Jüri or at least Heleza/Egert/Gram-of-fun win.
the lucky one is 1000 times better than what love is
that is true, but there are still a lot of better songs in EL this year, which are not so mediocre and are more modern
Besides the Roop and Gabrielius, Evelina Sasenko (ESC 2011) and Vilija (ESC 2014) are competing as well. But that’s the only 4 names I can recognize from the list, so I think it’ll get an easy win for The Roop.
Albanian is such a great language, I love to hear it in ESC too. English versions are not always better. And I always love to hear country’s singing in their own language.
I love it when Albania sings in their own language bc it sounds magic and I hope a lot countries will do. Mirud and his song would be amazing in Eurovision. Between 2011-2020 it never worked out to make an English revamp for Albania.
What would Inis do in Eurovision ? Pendese or an English version?
Probably English as English version of the song already exists