Dihaj will represent Azerbaijan at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest.
Haris Farsarakis
Last year Azerbaijan's national broadcaster ITV announced Dihaj as the country's representative in the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. Today the video for Dihaj's entry, Skeletons, was released. Azerbaijan will compete in the first Semi-Final in Kyiv on Tuesday 9th May.
Dihaj is the stage name of Azerbaijani singer and musician Diana Hajiyeva. It’s taken from the first letters of her name and surname. After graduating from Baku Music Academy in 2010 she moved on to the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London. While in the UK, Diana got involved with the local underground music scene by singing in a progressive trance trio called Looper & Mancus. Around that time, she decided to launch her own band.
In 2014, she created Dihaj, an electronic music collective from Baku. The band’s breakthrough single was I Break Again. Diana co-wrote it with Azerbaijani jazz pianist Isfar Sarabsky. Music critics have called the band “experimental doom pop,” praising its post-rock guitar riffs, semi-acoustic drum set, and atmospheric vocals.
As the lead singer of Dihaj, Diana has performed at numerous music festivals including Women in Paradise in Amsterdam, the Tbilisi Open Air and AlterVision concerts in Georgia and Kulturos Naktis in Lithuania.
Diana aka Dihaj will perform Skeletons at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kyiv. The song was written by famous Azerbaijani composer/producer Isa Melikov and Sandra Bjurman. They both previously worked with Eldar Gasimov and Nikki Jamal on their winning entry for Azerbaijan in 2011. Isa’s creative vision brought to life songs for Dima Bilan and Aysel. Sandra also helped to write Elnur’s Hour of the Wolf (2015), Safura’s Drip Drop (2010) and Maria Yaremchuk’s Ukrainian entry song Tick-Tock in 2014.
