Benidorm Fest 2024: Spain reveals 16 participants and song titles

Benidorm Fest 2024 is still two months away, but today we met the 16 contenders to succeed Blanca Paloma. And RTVE went big for the reveal: it happened live from Teatro Alameda in Sevilla.

The city is boiling with excitement ahead of the Latin Grammys, which take place on Thursday night, as it’s filled with the main artists from Latin America and Spain.

It was the perfect setting to hide the 16 participants of Benidorm Fest, some of whom had been around the city for over 24 hours by the time of the reveal.

Benidorm Fest 2024: The participants

– Almacor

– Angy

– Dellacruz

– Jorge González

– Lérica

– Mantra

– María Peláe

– Marlena

– Miss Caffeína

– Nebulossa

– Noan

– Quique Niza

– Roger Padrós

– Sofía Coll

– st. Pedro

– Yoly Saa

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Benidorm Fest 2024: Meet the artists

Almácor

Almácor is a young urban artist from Villena, Alicante, who is set to make a major breakthrough at Benidorm Fest. He blends rap, reggaeton, pop and electronic music.

He’s released more than 10 singles over the past four years and is yet to release an album, although he put out an EP early in the summer. More than 26,000 listeners enjoy his music on Spotify and a couple of his songs have over a million streams.

Almácor started his music career four years ago, while he was working as a barman and street seller. He’s set a goal of recording a song with Argentinian producer Bizarrap, a major name in the Latin industry. Yes, he who produced Shakira’s song about her break up with Gerard Piqué.

Angy

Angy Fernández is someone everybody knows in Spain. Her music career began on X Factor in 2007, and later she starred in teen drama “Física o Química”. You could say she was the image of the “emo” aesthetic back in the day.

Whilst her music career hasn’t been especially flamboyant, she’s remained a popular name in the country. And on social media. One of her tweets in 2015 became a meme. Weeks after the release of her album, she wrote: “I published an album days ago… don’t you like it?”.

Angy took a break from releasing music after that album, but has put out a couple of singles in the last year. She still got over 67,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and every single millennial in the country can sing her song “Sola en el silencio”.

Dellacruz

Dellacruz is the stage name of Jorge de la Cruz, a singer-songwriter from the Canary Islands who’s been around for four years.

More than ten singles after his first release, Dellacruz arrives in Benidorm with over 78,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. His style is clearly influenced by Latin and urban music.

Jorge González

Third time lucky? Well, that’s certainly Jorge González’s intention in Benidorm Fest 2024. He’s tried to enter Eurovision for Spain previously in 2009 and 2014. One song per decade, his latest try comes after having appeared on the TV show “Gypsy Kings”.

Jorge has always been in the Eurovision orbit, and his relationship with fans has been troubled at times, similar to what happened with Agoney last year. But hey: didn’t he win the semi-final and come second overall?

Besides Eurovision, Jorge is no stranger to Spanish television. He has taken part in Operación Triunfo, although it wasn’t related to ESC back when he competed, and The Voice. He’s been releasing music for over a decade, and now has around 16K monthly listeners, with some songs counting hundreds of thousand streams.

Lérica

The last time Spain sent a duo to Eurovision, Amaia and Alfred came 23^rd in the final. Lérica wants to reverse that and rise to the top of the scoreboard. They are one of Spain’s most popular duos. In fact, they have amassed more monthly listeners than any other music duo in the country with over 1.2 million on Spotify alone.

Their style is a melting pot of melodies ranging from flamenco to pop, rock and Latin styles, and it’s always very breezy and summery.

Lérica have joined forces multiple times with top artists from Spain and Latin America, including Belinda, Gente de Zona and Cali y el Dandee. And here’s a curious fact: Remember Chanel’s single “Clavaíto” with Abraham Mateo, a perennial fan favourite for Benidorm Fest? Well, one half of Lérica, Tony, is Abraham’s brother.

Mantra

You may not have heard of Mantra, but you definitely know the work of one of its members. The group consists of Charly Weinberg, Paula Pérez and Carlos Marco. Carlos was on Xeinn’s team in Benidorm Fest 2022, and Aritz’s “Flamenco” last year.

And besides “Eco”, Carlos was part of Auryn, the boy band which came second in Spain’s Eurovision selection and 2011 and went on to become one of the most popular bands in the country during the early 2010s.

Mantra has over 120,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and a couple of albums. Their last one, Epicentro, dropped in June and some of their songs have over a million listens on the platform. The group is all about pop in Spanish and despite their catalog being quite eclectic, it leans a lot on guitars and pop-folkish rhythms. However, they’ve also done reggaeton.

María Peláe

33 years old María Pelae from Málaga is one of Spain’s most cherished artists. Mixing flamenco with contemporary accents, she’s been around for almost ten years now. She recently released her fourth album ‘Al Baño María’ (explainer). She counts over 300,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

María is no stranger to television and Eurovision: she was one of the songwriters behind “Arde” — Aitana’s entry in the OT Gala Eurovisión 2018. As a performer, María finished third in Your Face Sounds Familiar, where she embodied Barbara Pravi and Pastora Soler.

An outspoken LGTBI icon, María is known for her lyrics, which have always depicted love and affection between two women. While that is, luckily, more common in 2023, it wasn’t always the case when she started her career. In fact, one of her best known songs is “La niña”, in which she interprets a mother who discovers her daughter is lesbian and ends joining her in a lesbian bar.

Marlena

Marlena consists of Ana Legazpi and Carolina Moyano, a duo from Madrid who got their name from the lyrics of Maneskin’s “Torna a Casa”. They decided to adopt the name when they learnt Marlena is the depiction of an empowered woman.

Their unique vocals and take on pop music have won them popularity on the Spanish indie scene. After touring Spain during the summer from one festival to another, they are now ready to take the stage in Benidorm.

With over 1.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Marlena count millions of streams on many songs, and one of them, “Me Sabe Mal” has over 37 million listens. They have been putting out singles since 2019 and have recently released their first album “1,000 Primeras Veces”.

Miss Caffeína

Miss Caffeína have been among Spain’s top alternative bands for over a decade now. Singing mainly in Spanish but having embraced Catalan for one of their best-known tracks “Merlí”, the band sit at the top of the banner at most music festivals. They have over 440,000 listeners on Spotify.

With five albums under the belt, along with many years of touring Spain during the summer, the band finally take the step to perform at Benidorm Fest. They are no strangers to the contest either, as their lead singer Alberto Jiménez penned what was supposed to be Agoney’s song for Eurovision 2018. Sadly, last year’s Benidorm Fest runner-up didn’t get to the OT finale, and “Señales” was later released as a single.

Miss Caffeína has been among the top favourites for Spanish Eurovision fans for years. However, they’ve always been reluctant to take up the challenge. Now it’s finally their time to compete.

Nebulossa

Remember the name: Nebulossa is one of the freshest names on the list. They do electronic pop, heavily inspired by 80s music and with quite explicit lyrics.

They play at home in Benidorm Fest: they come from la Marina, the area in the Region of Valencia where Benidorm sits. Mark Dasousa, the producer behind the group, is a well known producer of one of the region’s best known bands.

The closest thing in Benidorm Fest history to Nebulossa would be Varry Brava. Despite being quite unknown, with fewer than 2,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, Nebulossa has already released an album and several singles.

Noan

25-year-old Noan is from the Basque Country but now lives in Asturias. He’s mostly known for his pop-rock in Spanish and his raspy voice. Several of his songs count over three million listens and he has over 430,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Noan is yet to release an album, but he’s put out over ten singles ever since he started releasing music in 2020.

He’s no stranger to collaborations either, including one of his most listened-to tunes, “Odio que te quiero” with Paula Koops. And while he had no Eurovision connections until recently, he just released a version of “Nunca volverás” by Spain’s 2013 act ESDM.

Quique Niza

Remember when we first learned about Chanel? She had released no songs, but had a ton of experience in musical theatre. That’s exactly the case for Quique Niza. 

He’s the youngest competitor in Benidorm Fest, but at just 20 years of age, he already has more than five years of experience in musical theatre in Madrid, where he’s played Grease’s Danny Zuko among others.

Besides theatre, Quique has also acted in a couple of TV series, including UPA Next, which is about a group of young dancers.

Roger Padrós

Roger was discovered on The Voice Spain, where he reached the finale in the seventh edition. Coming from Barcelona, he’s also a pianist and has performed in many theatres around Catalonia.

With over 9,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, Roger has already released an album, “La Vida És Millor” in 2022. He usually sings in Catalan.

During his season of The Voice, which aired in 2020, Roger performed Muse’s “Feeling Good” and Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” among others. 

Sofía Coll

Hailing from Barcelona, Sofía Coll is one of the newest names on this year’s Benidorm Fest list, and one of the few independent artists. While she’s not the most listened to of artists, with only 7,000 monthly listeners, her song “Tu mente y tu corazón” has over 700,000 streams.

Her music spans pop to R’n’B and she plays with reggaeton bases as well. She sings in Spanish, Catalan and English. She’s also a dancer and actress, and has collaborated with Benidorm Fest alum Rakky Ripper.

Sofía took part in TV3’s talent show “Eufòria”, one of the most popular programmes in the channel. Miki Núñez, he of La Venda, is the host of the show. There, Sofía performed Rosa Linn’s “Snap” and Rigoberta Bandini’s “Perra”.

st. Pedro

st. Pedro was on The Voice of Spain in 2017, but his path led him to Miami. Originally from the Canary Islands, st. Pedro usually does Latin flavoured music, including bachatas.

He has over 37,000 monthly listeners and several of his songs have over one million streams. He has released an album, but curiously, it is a Christmas themed CD.

Pedro Hernández, his real name, has been releasing music since 2018, and most of it has been alone. He doesn’t seem to have any connection to Eurovision… until now.

Yoly Saa

Yoly Saa comes from Galicia and is a singer-songwriter who has penned songs for some of Spain’s brightest stars such as Malú and Luz Casal.

On her own, Yoly has started releasing music and last year took part in RTVE’s “Dúos Increíbles”, a program where newcomers do covers in a duet with established musicians. She performed with Sole Giménez, a huge name of Spain’s music scene during the 90s and early 00s.

Yoly released her first album “A Golpes de Fe” last year and has toured around Spain and Mexico. She has a song with Funambulista, who wrote this year’s Spanish entry for Junior Eurovision “Loviu”. She has over 77,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Benidorm Fest 2024 starts in Sevilla 

While we can’t listen to the songs yet, it’s a good moment to start looking at the artists’ back catalogues. Check out our “who is who” later.

Stay tuned tomorrow morning. Interviews with the artists will be taking place and we’ll make sure to bring you some of the excitement.

Are you excited for Benidorm Fest? Who is your favourite? Who are you hyping the most?