The winner of the 9th season of The Voice Belgique, Jérémie Makiese has given an interview for the French language newspaper, La Meuse, where he expressed the wish to participate at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Jérémie Makiese is a 20 years old geology student and singer from Berchem who joined the team of B.J. Scott at the recently finished ninth season of Belgian version of famous music show The Voice. On 13th of April Jérémie was announced as winner of the show after he performed his audition song “Jealous” by labirinth, “Revival” by Gregory Porter together with his mentor B.J.Scott and “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson, the performance of it is available below
He is currently working on his single but also hopes that RTBF could choose him as the next Belgian representative at Eurovision Song Contest.
Besides the single, my other project is Eurovision. It would be a complete honour to represent my country next year.
Jérémie Makiese, in an interview for La Meuse
There is a high chance this may happen given the fact that it is expected that Belgian representative at the contest in 2022 is going to be selected by RTBF who also produce The Voice Belgique, and could continue following the tradition which happened for the first time in 2013 by sending participants or winners of “The Voice Belgique” they sent the winner of the show, Roberto Bellarosa (Eurovision 2013) who reached 12th place in the final of Eurovision, then the runner up, Loïc Nottet (Eurovision 2015), whose song “Rhythm Inside” was co-written by his and Jérémie’s coach B.J. Scott, and led him to first Belgian top 5 finish since 2003, and now Loïc is also one of the judges of the show. In 2017 Ellie Delvaux – Blanche repeated the result of Loïc reaching 4th place when she represented Belgium with “City Lights” and the last one being the only non qualifier Eliot Vassamillet (Eurovision 2019), he ended on 13th place in the first semi-final.
From the beginning of Eurovision Song Contest Belgian representative is chosen by an alternation between VRT and RTBF. The two Belgian broadcasters are switching each year. So far this tradition has been changed three times. First in the 1990s and in 2001 when Belgium had to withdrew after having bad results at Eurovision. Since 2002, VRT has been doing all even years while all odd years were done by RTBF. The cancellation of Eurovision 2020 led them to the fourth change as VRT remains in charge for the Belgian entry in 2021. The Belgian broadcaster is expected to announce further details regarding the their selection process for Eurovision Song Contest in October or November. This year Belgium ended the contest as 19th with “The Wrong Place” by Hooverphonic you can check their performance below.
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