No kant do: Eurovision bars Malta’s entry over title’s similarity to C-word
Singer Miriana Conte told to change title and lyrics owing to suggestive play on Maltese word for ‘singing’
Malta’s contestant at this year’s Eurovision contest will have to change the title and lyrics of her song owing to the phonetic resemblance between the Maltese word for “singing” and the C-word, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has ruled.
Miriana Conte, 23, will represent Malta at the five-day music event in Basel, Switzerland, on 13 to 17 May after winning the Maltese song contest last month with her song Kant.
While kant, from the Latin cantus, does mean “singing” and does not have a rude meaning in Maltese, the play on the English slang word for female genitalia is clearly intentional.
The chorus of Conte’s empowerment anthem contains the phrase “serving kant” – a queer or drag slang phrase roughly meaning “to express boldness”.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Conte said she had been notified that the EBU had ruled against her using the word “kant”.“While I’m shocked and disappointed, especially since we have less than a week to submit the song, I promise you this: the show will go on – Diva NOT down,” she wrote.
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