The Latvian national selection for Eurovision Song Contest 2024, Supernova is starting this Saturday, 3rd of February. A total of 15 acts will be competing in the semi-final of the show for ten places in the final which is scheduled for 10th of February. One of the artists is a lady which already won this selection back in 2017 with Triana Park. Agnese Rakovska is a Latvian singer-songwriter who started her own education platform “Constellation” and wants to help other musicians emerge into the music industry. You can find out what we spoke about with Agnese in our interview below

Hello Agnese, you already had a chance to wave the Latvian flag at Eurovision 2017 with Triana Park performing the song “Line”. How did that experience influence your further career and what has changed since that performance?
A lot of things have changed. I have made my own music and education platform “Zvaigznājs”. In English it’s called “Constellation” and the philosophy behind it is to make a very strong music community and change the landscape of the music ecosystem in Latvia. This is giving me a lot of new ideas and a chance to focus on education. My performance with “Triana Park” was more about me, myself as an artist, but today I have the consciousness of the community and I want to expand it to see how I can build up more new ideas and help other people who want to emerge in the music industry by giving them the knowledge. Now we are focusing on building the first music incubator in the Baltic states and we want to make a lot of changes in our education system by introducing digital technologies in schools all over Latvia. We are happy to welcome the first teachers here in our office – they have been showing really good results in learning how to work with DAW stations and recording their vocals. Education is a big part of me now and after Eurovision “Triana Park” has been really focused on working locally and to sing songs in Latvian. Now, when I have “Constellation”, I want to focus more on audio branding and selling our music abroad by making Latvian music export our priority.

What inspired you to return at Supernova 2024?
So the song for Supernova was created in one of our songwriting camps. There are a lot of cool people in “Constellation” – we also had a wonderful person coming as a guest from France – Joachim Garraud. We really had a nice creative energy and I believe this song represents some ideas and vibes from the future. We just thought that the song is awesome, it has a great chorus and I think everybody who has heard the song wants to sing along. So I think this is a very strong part of creating a strong song. You have to have a nice hook and a nice chorus. I hope people will enjoy the song and add it to their playlist. Actually, I tried to pitch the song to other artists, because I wasn’t ready to participate in Supernova, but I couldn’t find the right person to do this and then, in the end, I decided – ok, I have to do it myself. And now I’m happy to be here again and experience this trip and meet other colleagues who are participating. I’m looking forward to just having a great time and expanding the ideas of education and music.

In 2017 Latvia had it’s first non qualification at Eurovision which continued in the next editions. How did that feel and in which way do you think the victory at Supernova 2024 with “AI” could help you to break that non-qualification streak?
Yes, the non-qualification streak in Latvia is a big deal. Everybody is talking about it and we are trying to solve this problem. But Eurovision is a very interesting concept. If everybody just had the right answer to the question: ”How to do this?”, then people would do it, right? It’s just a very multidisciplinary competition and there are a lot of aspects to take in mind. Every band, every performer wants to do his best and we are still proud of our performance. The song “Line” has reached a lot of listeners all over the world and it has done its magic. Sometimes music is not about the competition, but we, of course, want to believe that a great song can qualify for the finals and we will try to do it.

What’s your favorite memory from Eurovision 2017 or is there any anecdote you’d like to share with our readers?
Actually, my memories are very sentimental, because Ukraine was the place where we were going for Eurovision. Now we all know the story about Ukraine and it gives me some sentimental vibes, because we had a really good time there. The food was great, people were amazing and it’s hard to believe that all of this is being destroyed. We don’t know what the future will hold for this country. To spread humanity and the idea of peace and hope, I use the colors blue and white in my performance. We want to live in a world with peace, where everybody is happy. No killing and no Wars – it’s the world we want to live in.

Can you tell us a bit about “AI”, how did the song came to life?
We wrote the song “AI” in one of our “Constellation” songwriting camps which we hold every month. I think the inspiration really came from Joachim Garraud, who was our guest from France. It is a very big event if you can have such a guest, especially when you live in a small country like Latvia. He visited us and showed us his songs and other projects. Everybody was hyped up, so that’s why you have to be around people who push you and let you make the best decisions. You have to surround yourself with people who are creative, open, and disciplined. This is also a mission for me as a songwriter – to be better at it, so people would invite me in their songwriting sessions and I could contribute to some international projects in the future. My biggest dream would be to go to the USA and work with some American artists, like Kanye West and I hope that one day this dream of mine will come true.

What can we expect from your performance at Supernova 2024?
You will expect some cinematic experience. I want to bring movie vibes to the stage. This was also a cinematic experience when I wrote the song – I was really inspired by the movie “Dune” and it is a futuristic fairy tale about the war between the good and the evil. It’s not so original maybe, but it’s always true, because it’s so real in the world where we live. My inspiration comes from movies – I like them. And “Dune” is one of my favorite movies of all time right now, so I really hope to bring this mystical futuristic vibe to the stage and give you some inside of the non Artificial Intelligence which is LOVE.

Which artist competing at this year’s edition of Supernova do you see as your biggest competitor? And whose performance are you most excited for?
Actually, I haven’t heard any other songs, except for two of them. I want to really have a surprise moment and I want to see how the songs work on the stage, how the people will do their performances and only then I will make some decisions or some ideas about them. But of course I’m really happy that Dons has entered the competition. I strongly hope that Supernova has gathered a lot of great and solid talents, and people who have experience in the field, not only the young artists. In the future, I would like Supernova to attract more artists that are already established in the music industry.

If you could chose a musician to record a duet with who would it be and which style of the song would the two of you perform?
I think it would be Kendrick Lamar or Kanye West – one of them for sure. The style of this song would be some kind of pop song with hip-hop elements. Oh, and maybe Post Malone would be the third.

What do you do when you are not creating music and singing? Any hobbies?
I think my hobby is my business – it’s so involved in everything I do. Of course, I would like to travel more, but also my music experience lets me travel sometimes by taking me to different places in the world. I think that music is the best choice for working in the industry, because it opens the doors where you can meet the most creative people on this planet, and I want to meet them. I’m always trying to be the most creative person in the room and I learn as I go , so I think my best hobbies are education and music.

What are your plans after Supernova 2024?
My plans after Supernova is to open the first music incubator in the Baltic states. Also to open the first producer school in Latvia and to bring digital technologies into every school in Latvia – we have 420 schools. So, these are my main goals that I want to do with my team after the Supernova. Also the audio branding projects that I really admire. This year we hope to strike our first international deal with one large brand that I will not mention now, but this what we are working with right now.

Thank you so much for your time Agnese. We wish you the best of luck at Supernova 2024.Do you want to share something else or you maybe have a message for readers of escbubble?
Remember, MONEY CAN’T BUY LOVE.

You can listen to “AI” by Agnese Rakovska below

You can let us know who are YOUR favorites at Supernova 2024 by voting in our poll below, and you can also leave your impressions about “AI” in the comments and at our social media @escbubble

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