Eugent Bushpepa

Early life

Bushpepa was born on 2 July 1984 in Rrëshen, Albania. He started singing at the age of six while his guitar training began in the fifth grade of primary school. After finishing high school, he moved to Bologna, Italy, to study medicine where he completed his first academic year.^[6] Although Eugent made his professional stage debut in Kënga Magjike at the age of fourteen, his music career was jump-started upon his return to Albania in 2006 where he was set to pursue a medical degree in dentistry and started to perform live shows in various night clubs and pubs alongside studies. Writing and performing his own material, Bushpepa had also made various live covers and appeared in over 2000 live shows since his beginnings.^[7]

Music career

Clockwise from upper left: Bushpepa has opened for Deep Purple in 2007, Duff McKagan (Guns N'Roses) in 2011, Overkill in 2014, and has performed with Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal in 2013.

Bushpepa's professional career began in 2006 and since then he has been active in the Albanian music scene. His national breakthrough came with the song ”Maska e Madhështisë", released in 2007 at Top Fest 4. In the same competition, he also teamed up with a rock band called Sunrise, performing their song Engjëll, and then he went on to play in major music festivals and worked on new music.^[1].

He was asked to become the supporting act for Duff McKagan for a concert in Tirana^[8][9] on their Loaded band tour on 1 June 2011.

Bushpepa posing for journalists during a promotional tour in Madrid, Spain, 2018

During a traditional beer festival in Korçë on 18 August 2013, Bushpepa performed with Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, the guitarist of Guns N' Roses.^[10][11] In 2014, he joined the band Darkology as their tour vocalist.^[12], replacing Kelly Sundown Carpenter in their Killfest tour with Overkill, Prong, and Enforcer who performed in various cities in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands.^[13].

In early to mid 2017, Bushpepa had signed on as an adviser in The Voice of Albania, assisting Besa's team, whereas on 24 December 2017, he won the 56th edition of Festivali i Këngës, the longest-running annual televised music competition in Albania since 1962, and thus represented Albania at the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal with his song "Mall".^[14][15]

Eurovision Song Contest

Following Bushpepa's victory in Albania, it was confirmed that his winning song "Mall" would be performed in Albanian language but with a shortened duration of three minutes as per Eurovision rules. The Eurovision version was reworked by Bushpepa and Jim Lowe, a Grammy Award-winning audio engineer, and was released through Universal Music on April 16.^[16]. Bushpepa's promotional tour in London and Tel Aviv were postponed due to visa delays^[17], but he resumed the tour in Amsterdam and Madrid that advanced with great success^[18][19]. Albania was drawn to compete third at the first-semi final in which Bushpepa performed "Mall" third in a field of nineteen participants and qualified for the Grand Final being among the top ten most-voted acts^[20]. In the final, the song was performed twelfth in a field of twenty-six and ranked seventh with the juries and eleventh with a combined televote score.

Chinese censorship

Bushpepa performing at the Eurovision Song Contest 2018

During the Chinese broadcast of the Eurovision's first semi-final on Mango TV, Bushpepa's performance was taken completely off-air due to a ban on television performers displaying tattoos that took effect in January 2018^[21], while the Irish entry was also edited out of the show due to its representation of a same-sex couple on stage. As a result, the EBU terminated the broadcast rights agreement with Mango TV, citing that "censorship is not in line with the EBU's values of universality and inclusivity and its proud tradition of celebrating diversity through music," which led to a ban on televising the second semi-final and the grand final in the country.^[22]. Notwithstanding the fact, Bushpepa has not commented publicly on the matter.

Singles

He featured two new songs ("Koha Ndryshk" and "stay with me") in his Tirana concert, June, 2nd 2018.