Germany: Acts revealed for national final 🇩🇪

For the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest in May, it’ll be the German public that decides the nation’s entry. At 20:15 CET on Friday 4 March, viewers will be invited to tune in to Germany 12 Points, broadcasting live from Berlin. Barbara Schöneberger will be hosting an evening of entertainment during which the 6 acts will perform their Eurovision hopefuls, and viewers watching at home will be encouraged to vote for their favourite by phone or text message.

But it won’t just be TV viewers who have their say…

From Monday 28 February, listeners of the 9 ARD pop radio stations (each of which will be including the Germany 12 Points songs in their schedules) will be able to visit the stations’ websites and cast their vote there, too. Voting will remain open until 20:00 CET on Friday 4 March, 15 minutes before Germany 12 Points kicks off in style.

The votes of radio listeners and TV viewers will be given a 50% weighting each. Whichever participant gets the most points will be performing for Germany at the 66th Eurovision Song Contest final in Turin on 14 May.

The 6 acts in the running to represent Germany, and performing on Germany 12 Points in March:

Emily Roberts

Emily Roberts (28) is originally from Hamburg but now lives in Berlin. The daughter of a photographer and a musician, she grew up listening to the songs of the Beatles and Joni Mitchell. She started writing her own songs at 15 and signed her first record deal at 19.

In 2019, her cover of Bitter Sweet Symphony, a collaboration with the DJ duo Gamper & Dadoni, spent 13 weeks in the German airplay charts (21 weeks in Austria) and went gold. In 2020, her song In This Together, was used as the theme song for the 14th season of the German I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here!. She recently toured with James Blunt.

Her song: Soap

📺 Watch: Emily Roberts – Soap

Composition and lyrics: Emily Roberts, Andreas Öhrn, Didrik Thott, Simon Wangemann

'For me, Eurovision is all about harmony, inclusion and a celebration of diversity. For one evening, we’re all focused on something we all love: music. My song has a story that everyone has experienced before. It describes the feeling of wanting to finally get 'that one person’ out of your head, and wraps the whole thing musically in soap bubbles and distorted guitars.'

Eros Atomus

At the age of 21, Eros Atomus already considers himself a true global citizen, who speaks 7 languages. He grew up in Bavaria with 11 siblings, and has lived in the USA, China, the Netherlands, the Caribbean and Italy. His mother is Danish, his father is Swiss – but he feels most at home in Flensburg in northern Germany. Aside from his achievement in reaching the final of The Voice of Germany in 2018, he’s best known for his strikingly unusual way of playing the guitar, known as 'lap style’, which Eros himself invented. Influenced by many genres, cultures and languages, his songs tell stories of his own personal experiences.

His song: alive

📺 Watch: Eros Atomus – alive

Composition and lyrics: Eros Atomus, Marcel Zürcher, Eike Freese

'The past few years have been difficult for all of us. With my song 'alive’, I’d like to open people’s eyes and show them how great life can be, with all its highs and lows, even in the pandemic. Everyone has problems in life but there’s one thing we all have in common and should never forget: it’s great to be alive!'

Felicia Lu

Felicia Lu (26) lives in Vienna. She grew up in Freilassing, a small Bavarian town near the Austrian border. At the age of 15, she already knew she wanted to be a musician – a decision that attending a specialist music school and being part of a choir helped her to make. In 2015, she released her first original song, and in 2017 she made it to the German Eurovision pre-selection heats for the first time. She began working as a musician full-time in 2021 and writes songs for herself and other artists. Her songs have racked up hundreds of thousands of views and plays on YouTube and streaming platforms.

Her song: Anxiety

📺 Watch: Felicia Lu – Anxiety

Composition and lyrics: Felicia Lu Kürbiß

'I think everyone’s familiar with feelings of stress and anxiety, and it’s vital to speak openly about these anxieties we all have. So I put my feelings into a song. I hope it’ll help people who listen to it to feel a little better understood. I want to send a message that anyone can be who they are, that you don’t owe anything to anybody but yourself, that everyone has the potential to achieve their dreams.'

Maël & Jonas

Maël Brunner (26) and Jonas Brochhausen (20) come from Koblenz. They’ve already demonstrated their joyful exuberance and musical talent to an audience of millions on The Voice of Germany, where they made history as the first duo ever to reach the final. Their single Treat You Right, which they performed at the final with Nico Santos, has been streamed millions of times.

Maël & Jonas spend a lot of time together at the studio in Koblenz, write and produce their own songs and love being on stage. Maël, the older of the two, is a father. Alongside his musical career, he’s studying to be a teacher. Jonas, meanwhile, recently graduated from college and is focusing his energy on music.

Their song: I Swear to God

📺 Watch: Maël & Jonas – I Swear To God

Composition and lyrics: Jonas Brochhausen, Maël Brunner

'We’ll stand there on stage as two friends and show how we’ve stuck together through thick and thin down through the years. We want to share a little of our positive energy and bring a smile to people’s faces.'

Malik Harris

The German-American pop singer, rapper and songwriter Malik Harris (24) grew up near Landsberg am Lech. He comes from a very musical family: 'My grandpa was an opera singer, my grandma was a pianist and my dad plays several different instruments and teaches cello'. Malik’s first singles, Say The Name (2018) and Welcome to the Rumble (2019), were hits both on the airplay chart and on streaming platforms, too. He began his first solo tour in May 2019. He has also opened for international acts like James Blunt, Alex Clare, Jeremy Loops, Tom Odell and LP. His debut album, Anonymous Colonist, came out in August 2021.

His song: Rockstars

📺 Watch: Malik Harris – Rockstars

Composition and lyrics: Malik Harris, Marianne Kobylka, Robin Karow

'I’d be so proud to represent Germany with my music on an international stage. In Rockstars, I lay my feelings bare, and I can’t wait to perform the song live and share it with a big audience. It’s a song that has incredible personal significance for me and offers a glimmer of hope in these difficult times, while also showing people that we’re all in the same boat.'

Nico Suave & Team Liebe

Nico Suave has teamed up with fellow artists NKSN, Buket and EMY to form Nico Suave & Team Liebe (Team Love). Nico Suave (43) and EMY (19) both live in Hamburg. That’s also where EMY was born, while Nico Suave originally hails from Menden. NKSN (28) and Buket (35) are from Berlin, though they grew up in Kiel and Hamburg.

In their previous single Diese Welt Braucht Liebe (This World Needs Love), Nico Suave, Teesy and 14 other German musicians showed just how well musical friendships can work. For Germany 12 Points, Nico Suave brought his friends Team Liebe on board, and together, they’ve created a song that picks up where This World Needs Love left off, asking: 'Hey world! How’s it going?'

Their song: Hallo, Welt (Hey, World)

📺 Watch: Nico Suave & Team Liebe – Hallo, Welt

Composition: Toni Mudrack, Nico Suave, Dominik Köhl, Joshua Stolten, Volker Neumüller
Lyrics: Toni Mudrack, Jan Dettwyler, Nico Suave, Buket Kocatas, Niklas Esterle, Volker Neumüller

'We want to convince the audience with a mixture of rap, soul and good energies. Our anthem is addressed to the world; we ask ourselves why it’s so hard to find and hold on to happiness. It’s a feel-good song that’s intended to get people dancing.

Let us know what you think via the official Eurovision Song Contest YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook channels.