Gaitana "Be My Guest"
Gaitana won the Ukrainian national final handily with this song, coming in first with the jury and second with the Ukrainian public.
Personally find it a perfectly peppy number with a nice dance groove, a little ethnicity with the horns, and Gaitana has a lovely R&B voice that seems reminiscent of Mary J. Blige and Tina Turner.
However, her win of the contest has brought to attention the rampant racism that is a part of Ukrainian society not necessarily noticeable.
Yuriy Syrotyuk, a member of the nationalist Svoboda party, told the Kiev Post that Gaitana is "not an organic representation of Ukrainian culture", and although she is "a great singer", she "represents another race, will provoke an association of Ukraine as a country of a different continent”.
Gaitana provoked these comments because he is ethnically only half Ukrainian, her father was born in the Republic of Congo.
It isn't particularly surprising coming from a leader of a nationalist party, which according to Wikipedia (so take this with a grain of salt) has a desire to promote ethnic identity, like quotas for ethnic Ukrainians in governmental bodies and universities and stopping adoption of Ukrainian children by non-Ukrainians.
And what's even more infuriating is the fact that almost nobody in the political sphere of the country has spoken out against Syrotyuk's speech. As an American, this is absolutely unbelievable, but unsurprising.
But this political kerfuffle really shouldn't have any bearing on the song, and I expect that it's going to do well. Gaitana's R&B voice and the bouncy music should go down really well across Europe, and hopefully she's going to do really well come the night of the finals.
Yuriy Syrotyuk, a member of the nationalist Svoboda party, told the Kiev Post that Gaitana is "not an organic representation of Ukrainian culture", and although she is "a great singer", she "represents another race, will provoke an association of Ukraine as a country of a different continent”.
Gaitana provoked these comments because he is ethnically only half Ukrainian, her father was born in the Republic of Congo.
It isn't particularly surprising coming from a leader of a nationalist party, which according to Wikipedia (so take this with a grain of salt) has a desire to promote ethnic identity, like quotas for ethnic Ukrainians in governmental bodies and universities and stopping adoption of Ukrainian children by non-Ukrainians.
And what's even more infuriating is the fact that almost nobody in the political sphere of the country has spoken out against Syrotyuk's speech. As an American, this is absolutely unbelievable, but unsurprising.
But this political kerfuffle really shouldn't have any bearing on the song, and I expect that it's going to do well. Gaitana's R&B voice and the bouncy music should go down really well across Europe, and hopefully she's going to do really well come the night of the finals.
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