Jasmine Kara talks Melodifestivalen

Jasmine Kara is one of our long-time favorites here at Your Living City, and we couldn’t have been happier when we heard she is finally competing in Melodifestivalen this year. We met up with Jasmine one fine morning to have a chat and here we bring you the first part of her interview, concentrating on all things Mello.

Jasmine says she has been asked to join Melodifestivalen already a couple of years earlier.

I think I’ve always wanted to enter it, but I’ve been kinda scared to try it out. Also I didn’t feel like I had the right song, and I’ve been back and forth to the United States. But now I felt it was the right time and I also wanted to come back to Sweden for a while.

Jasmine has written her Mello entry Gravity together with Anderz Wrethov.

I think this song has been one of the easiest to make ever, because it came so naturally to me and Anderz. We had the base of it in maybe 15 minutes. We just wanted to talk about love and how people can get together in the best way through music.

Jasmine says the songs is about how she gravitates towards music, how music is something she is meant to do.

But it could also be about a relationship, which can have its ups and downs. But at the end of the day, you are drawn to each other and need each other.

Jasmine reveals her number will be in one way or another related to the title Gravity and its effects – but she can’t tell much more about it yet.

It’s not going to be something crazy crazy… It’s gonna be a warm performance, for sure.

Jasmine is competing in the third of the four Mello preliminaries, which will be held in Växjö on the 18^th of February. Her competition for that night includes, among others, the hugely popular boyband The Fooo Conspiracy and our Finnish Eurovision Queen Krista Siegfrids.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the other artists, but most of all to finally get to perform in such a great context where you can share what you have been working so hard for: your passion, your love and your happiness. And hopefully make other people happy as well.

I’m happy there are really strong acts in the competition. It inspires me a lot. And a lot of them have good things to say to the audience as well.

We also wanted to hear if Jasmine has some old Melodifestivalen favorites from years past. She says she has many, but one she really remembers strongly is when Arvingarna won with the song Eloise in 1993 (when Jasmine would have been about five). She remembers singing to the song with her sister.

We were so happy when it won, because that song was the bomb! But also when Loreen won with Euphoria, because that song was magic! There’s so many, starting from ABBA…

Jumping ahead and thinking what it would be like to go and represent Sweden in Eurovision, Jasmine says it would be a dream come true.

The first thing I would do would be to visit my best friend’s parents there. She’s from Ukraine and hasn’t seen them in 15 years because she hasn’t been able to travel. That would be a huge thing for me.

Look out for part two of our interview with Jasmine Kara ahead of her performance in the third preliminary heat of Melodifestivalen on the 18^th of February.

The Melodifestivalen circus is kicking off already on the 4^th of February, with the first heat being held in Gothenburg. That heat includes another one of our big favorites, Ace Wilder, as well as previous Eurovision winner Charlotte Perrelli. Be sure to catch it!

MELODIFESTIVALEN on Saturdays at 20:00 on SVT1 or SVT Play

4^th February     Heat 1, Gothenburg

11^th February  Heat 2, Malmö

18^th February  Heat 3, Växjö

25^th February  Heat 4, Skellefteå

4^th March          Second Chance. Linköping

11^th March       Final, Stockholm

Text & pictures: Nina Uddin
Videography & editing: Karen Pérez Guzmán