Slimane is not the only Frenchman to participate in the 2024 edition of Eurovision. A few years after a first success as stunning as it was unexpected, the Lille duo Ladaniva is also participating, under the colors of Armenia, in the competition, the final of which will take place this Saturday, May 11.
Born in Lille in 2019, the group is made up of singer Jaklin Baghdasaryan, Armenian by birth but raised in Belarus, and Louis Thomas, multi-instrumentalist from Lille. Jaklin is arrived at the age of 20 in Tourcoing (North), “looking for freedom and a better life, without speaking a word of French,” she tells AFP. “I don’t even speak Armenian that well!”, adds the singer.
During an improvisation session, she meets Louis, who is touched by her voice. Travels follow, notably to Reunion or South America, on the trail of “world music” (traditional Armenian singing, maloya, reggae, etc.) which merge in their repertoire.
In 2019, they recorded a cover of an “old Armenian song” and put it online on YouTube “on the fly, without premeditation”. Thanks to word of mouth, the number of views takes off. Armenian diasporas from all countries meet in the comments section to encourage them.
“So, we tinkered a bit. I wrote my first text, we put a composition online,” remembers Jaklin Baghdasaryan. Quickly, the clip has millions of views, appears on Armenian television, is found in all flavors on TikTok in France, in Russia, in Armenia. “It was totally surreal,” breathes Louis Thomas, 36 years old. “As soon as the confinement ended, we found ourselves signed to a label, playing at Trans Musicales (in Rennes) and at Printemps de Bourges”.
17th in the bookmaker rankings
In 2022, Armenian television offers them to represent the country at Eurovision. “I watched Eurovision when I was little with my mother,” recalls Jalkin Baghdasaryan. It will be necessary to try it three times for the idea to come to fruition, in 2024. It is true that the group’s repertoire falls quite far from the aesthetics of the competition organized this year in Sweden.
The duo is classified 17th by bookmakers, according to the website eurovisionworld.com, behind the Swiss favorite Nemo and the Frenchman Slimane (6th). Faithful to the spontaneity and joie de vivre of their beginnings, Ladaniva calmly approaches the competition: “It’s a little stressful but, at the moment, you don’t think about it, remarks Jaklin Baghdasaryan. You are like a bull in the arena, you go for it.”
In a competition traditionally loaded with political weight – as evidenced by the controversies over the participation of Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 or of Israel, in war against Hamas in Gaza, in 2024 – and then that Armenia and Azerbaijan are opposed in a territorial conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, they however refuse to see themselves as “representatives”. “Being there, singing in my native language, it’s already a way of speaking out,” says Jalkin Baghdasaryan. As for Louis Thomas, he describes the moment as “surreal” but it is also “an honor” for him.
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