#bashar murad

7th of August, 2021...

His song is Wild West (title in English)/Vestrið villt (title in Icelandic), which he co-wrote with the guys from Hatari (yes, the guys who held up the Palestinian flag during the 2019 contest held in Israel) and even learn how to sing in Icelandic to perform this song.

Anyway, here’s his live performance. He has qualified to the final

Palestinian pop singer Bashar Murad is hoping to represent Iceland at the Eurovision Song Contest in May and bring “a Palestinian voice to the main stage”. [...] Murad is competing in the national final with a song co-written by Einar Stefansson of the Icelandic band Hatari, known for raising a banner showing Palestinian flags during the 2019 Eurovision Contest. [...] In Iceland’s domestic qualification, singers of any nationality can participate if they sing their song in the first semifinal in Icelandic. Murad, who was born in and lives in occupied East Jerusalem, said it was difficult to learn the song in Icelandic, but he found some similarities to Arabic. His entry, Wild West, tells the story of challenging boundaries and chasing dreams against all odds. “I wanted to illustrate how many obstacles as Palestinians we have to go through in order to be heard … we’re excluded from every mainstream platform,” he said. “Everyone has theories about my participation. And everyone is politicising my existence when I’m really just a human who had a dream and applied for this competition fair and square.” When asked if Murad wants Israel to participate in the competition, he said, “Of course, I don’t want my occupier to be there.” “But my main focus right now is to be able to bring, for the first time in history, a Palestinian voice to the main stage.”