Nemo Mettler, the 24-year-old who grew up in Bienne/Biel in Switzerland, won Eurovision with “The Code”, a song with elements of rap, drum and base and opera.
This year’s Eurovision competition, the 68th edition, took place over the weekend in the Swedish city of Malmo.
Born in Switzerland in 1999, Nemo has been playing the violin, piano and drums since early childhood. In 2016, Nemo became famous from an appearance at SRF Virus, which went viral on social media. After the release of two EPs and seven songs that made it directly onto the official Swiss Singles Charts, the singer went on to win five Swiss Music Awards. The song “The Code” has been listened to 8.6 million times on Spotify.
The artist’s music deals with themes such as gender identity, mental health and finding one‘s place in the world.
Speaking after winning the award, the artist called for more rights for non-binary people, including the possibility of being able to choose a third option when entering gender on official documents. The singer, who identifies neither as male or female, has championed such changes in the past. Nemo also announced a desire to meet with Swiss Justice Minister Beat Jans to discuss the subject.
The Swiss government has discussed the idea in the past but has not found ways to overcome practical challenges – information on biological gender helps pension planning (women live longer), healthcare provision and determining military obligations (compulsory for men but not women).
Switzerland has made it as far as the Grand Final round in all of the last five Eurovision events. The last time it won was in 1988 in Dublin when Céline Dion represented Switzerland.
More on this:
SRF article (in German)
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