A Ukrainian nationalist party is under fire after a high profile member suggested a black singer cannot represent the country at a popular international song contest. Pop star Gaitana, 32, who was born in Kiev to a Congolese father and Ukrainian mother, was chosen last week to represent Ukraine at the 2012 Eurovision Song contest to be held in May in the ex-Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. Yuri Sirotyuk of the political party Svoboda (Freedom) was quoted by media as saying Gaitana does not represent Ukrainian culture, and Ukraine will be associated with Africa if she sings in the contest. Ukraine’s National Television condemned the...

The 2010 Croatian Eurovision representatives, girl group Feminnem, which also represented Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2005 have split up and gone their separate ways. The decision was made when one of the three members, Nika Antolos, decided to move to Moscow. The other group members, Neda Parmać and Pamela Ramljak, will continue to work in the music industry, although separately. They say they will all remain close friends. Group member, Neda Parmać, says “I’m shaken up and I’m lost. I need to go through that stage where I let all the emotions come out and see where to go from there”. Nika says she is moving to Moscow to be with her...

It was a big need to write this post as many countries are suffering big time from the economic crisis around the world and Europe. It is important to see that no matter the big problems some countries have to deal with, they stick to Eurovision Song Contest as a mean to at least bring some pride to their nations even through a music television show. Eurovision Song Contest is quite popular in Europe, one of the top television family show. Despite practically bankrupt, countries like Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Romania and Ireland are entering the 2012 edition of the contest hoping that music can overcome the bad psychology in their...

In connection with A Dal, the Hungarian National contest, we had the opportunity to interview Kati Wolf, who represented Hungary in Eurovision Song Contest last year. She has been one of the jury members and admitted that it was difficult to judge her own colleagues. After all she was very satisfied with the result and she believes that ”Sound of Our Hearts” with Compact Disco will be a good representative for Hungary in Baku. Kati also told us about the fantastic response she got after Eurovision in Düsseldorf. She was treated as a winner in Hungary despite ending 22nd in the final. Her entry “What About My Dreams” has become very...

The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 is underway and oikotimes.com begins presenting you the artists through a unique way in a special collaboration with the products of Vodafone UK. For the first time on the web, we interview a Eurostar through Skype, presenting you the video below. The second participant that lives the experience is Soluna Samay. Soluna Samay, the representative of Denmark in this year’s Eurovision song contest, meets oikotimes.com! She tells us her feelings about her participation and we get to know her even better. Don’t miss this unique...

One of the countries where Eurovision is almost a matter of life is surely the Island of Malta. The Maltese selection for Eurovision and Eurovision itself is for the Maltese audience without any doubt one of the highlights of the year and 2012 is not changing it at all. However things are being played very hard these days. PBS is the official and legal broadcaster responsible for organising the national selection and selecting the maltese representative for the Eurovision Songcontest. In recent years the other main tv-stations, One TV and NET-TV (the respective tv-channels of the labour party and nationalist party) covered the Eurovision as...