Azerbaijan: Efendi

 I have a soft spot for Efendi's 2020 tribute to late 90s RnB girl group "Cleopatra" (I believe the lyric "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo", seemingly performed here by Hades himself, is a direct translation of "Comin' atcha!"). As part of a virtual Eurovision event last year, my wife was assigned Azerbaijan. I was living away from my family (due to covid) but remember fondly the videos of my wife and daughter singing "Cleopatra" and also rubbishing the chances of my Georgian song. (In our virtual Eurovision, Azerbaijan came 4th so may be one to watch out for this year?)

This year efendi returns with "Mata Hari". Mata Hari, as we all know without needing to resort to Wikipedia, was the stage name of Margaretha MacLeod (nee Zelle; 7 August 1876 - 15 October 1917), a Dutch exotic dancer who was executed by a French firing squad after admitting to spying for the Germans in World War 1.

Efendi, if she is to be believed, is just like Cleopatra and also, again taking Efendi at her word, Mata Hari was just like Cleopatra. So what is it that connects these three women? (NB. For those struggling to keep up, I have moved on now from my previous assertion that the song relates to the girl band and we are now dealign with the ancient Egpytian queen.) Both Cleopatra and Mata Hari have reputations as seductresses and certainly there is enough evidence in the lyrics, costume and choreography of both her videos to suggest that this is the theme being explored by our Azerbaijani chanteuse. But I prefer to believe that Efendi is drawing on Cleopatra's leadership in many conflicts and Mata Hari's endeavours to influence WWI, to introduce us to her military capabilities. I will be keeping an eye out in the years to come to see if Efendi is carving out a route for future Eurovision stars to rise to the ranks of Commander-in-Chief. We shall see!

In the meantime, it is fair to say that both songs are sufficiently catchy that they could've/could do well. For me, the moment in "Cleopatra" where we discovered that Efendi's inner voice sounds like a black hole collapsing is the moment Azerbaijan became contenders. "Mata Hari" does not have that moment but, who knows, maybe Eurovision's loss will be the Azerbaijani Armed Forces' gain?