“We are all queens!” Interview with Eurovision 2021’s Samanta Tīna on Empowering Latvian Entry ‘The Moon Is Rising’, High Standards, and National Selections

We had the pleasure of chatting to Samanta Tīna who will be representing Latvia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 in Rotterdam. Samanta will be performing her song The Moon Is Rising at Semi-Final 2 on the 20th of May.

Samanta spoke about coming up with a new original entry, shared the message of the song “Stop hiding, stop being afraid of being different… we all are queens”, perfecting her ‘On Tape’ performance, and discussed her thoughts on her previous entries in the Latvian national selections.

Read some of the selected highlights of the interview below or watch the full interview above. You can connect with Samanta on her Instagram and Facebook. You can stream her music on Spotify and Apple Music.

On choosing The Moon Is Rising as her entry…

I knew that everyone was going to compare with Still Breathing. That was really hard. We made a songwriting camp for two days and made eleven demos. After the first day I had a feeling that all the songs were a bit similar to Still Breathing. I told my team “Stop. We can’t make a new Still Breathing and we don’t need it because 2020 was about Still Breathing… Let’s move on. We need something totally different.” I found a new demo which became The Moon Is Rising but we had to rework it… that was crazy, it took about three or four months to finish it.

On not having to test the song out through Supernova…

I was talking about this with my team. Usually we have this live performance experience with an audience, reactions and comments. This year there is nothing. I was even hoping for pre-parties to go and perform this song but no, this year is totally home-made performances and rehearsal place performances. I really miss that – and all the performances overall. The whole year we have nothing – only a few live performances on TV with no audience – it’s totally different, a new world. I’m always trying to imagine that there is an audience – it helps. The song is powerful, my team is powerful and I know what I want to say with the song, everything should be in the right place.

On the central themes of The Moon Is Rising…

The main message is about equality, women’s power… that all our differences make us unique. I want every woman with her two hands to put this crown on themselves. The most important thing is to use your own hands, to start to love yourself the way you are. Stop hiding, stop being afraid of being different… we all are queens. Just accept yourself.

On last minute changes to her On Tape performance…

I had the chance to see how it was going to look on stage… and I saw it and didn’t like it. So I changed everything. My team was like “Samanta, no!” and I was like “Yes! We’re going to change everything.” We had a chance to watch how it looks from the otherside of the TV screen and I didn’t like it. They were totally shocked but what else can they do? Nothing! We are going to rework everything until everyone is happy. When we have the Supernova experience you can see how it’s going to look and what you need to change. When you look at your show during rehearsals or costumes and staging, then you look on the TV and it looks totally different.

On previous National Final entries…

One of the favourite songs is from 2013, I Need a Hero, that is a song that everyone asks for when I’m performing somewhere. I’m a bit tired of it as I have totally changed my style and genre over the years, but it is very popular and very sweet for me. It was made in Latvian and was a soundtrack for a movie. This song was really close to everybody and sometimes it hurts me as everyone tells me “You need a song similar to I Need a Hero.” If I need to tell the truth, I can’t say that all songs I really liked… on prime time television I told them I was leaving in the final of 2016. We did two songs. Something changed in my mind. Is this really a song that I could go with a flag in my hand and a belief that this is the right song that I wanted to share with the world? No. That was a big shock for everybody. Then I took a big pause for two years to understand what I really want to do and why.

On listening to the other 2021 entries…

This is the most popular question! I’m going to represent my project. I know the names of the songs and that’s all. I want them to impress me when I’m there. I’m not listening or sparing extra time to go through the participants, I just know that I’m really happy about all the participants from 2020 that are back again this year. I’m really glad about that.