I went to Eurovision in Concert this weekend. It was fantastic, as expected, but only one artist managed to truly surprise me: Malta’s Miriana Conte.
When Miriana was chosen as Malta’s artist after a long and instructive National Final (raise your hand if you too know how to do your Maltese taxes), most of the discourse revolved around the title of her song. It was Kant, which means singing in Maltese, and is a colloquial English term for a lot of things which don’t mean singing. Here’s the video from the National Final, featuring the song in its original unredacted form:
First of all, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the amazing set of pipes owned by Ms. Conte. Last year, she had one of the best songs in the Maltese contest, titled Venom, which I wrote about at the time. But Kant, in its National Final version, was a song designed to achieve one objective and one objective alone: build a dance banger around the phrase “serving Kant.”
I cannot blame anyone in Malta for making this choice. Malta has failed to qualify for the final since 2021, the year they sent Destiny, a Junior Eurovision winner. They failed to qualify last year despite poor Sarah Bonnici being tossed around the stage like a halibut while letting out trills for days. Taking as true the maxim that no publicity is bad publicity, Malta is getting more people talking about their entry than ever before. One might even argue that, with her interview on Newsnight, Miriana Conte has had more publicity than the BBC.
I don’t want to get sucked into the whole Kant discussion, aside from noting that I had some qualms about a positive term originating in queer and Black ballroom culture – a positive term reclaiming the negative use of the original word – being introduced to the world at large suddenly on a Saturday night. Yes, serving kant (I’m going to use the Maltese spelling) is a compliment that is spreading organically from queer communities into internet slang into youth slang, but it’s still not one that’s the typical person on the street would know.
As someone who has been called a Kant (derogatory) by louts, I can envision a world – no, I don’t need to envision a world. We live in a world where people will use the fact that the word has appeared at Eurovision in a respectful, positive manner to justify using kant as a term of gendered abuse at women. The nuance doesn’t matter to them.
Yes, artists should be able to express themselves freely, and not worry about how the worst elements of society are going to react to their song. But we don’t need to have that discussion anymore! Because within a remarkably short time of the EBU announcing that they wouldn’t allow the use of the term on stage, Miriana Conte and her team turned around an entirely new version of the song, simply titled: Serving
And once the Kant is removed, what’s left? The answer is Miriana Conte, who turns out to be the absolute best thing about this song. We’ve already discussed her immaculate vocal capacity, but surprisingly – Miriana Conte is a Weird Little Dude (TM The Eurowhat podcast).
To be clear, calling Miriana Conte a Weird Little Dude is high praise. You know why? Weird Little Dudes get to have all the fun at Eurovision. They get to sing the party songs. They don’t have to worry about looking glam or hitting their dance breaks. They get to be silly and people love them for it. Think Kaarija or Zdob si Zdub or Windows95man and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Until this point, there haven’t been any women in the Weird Little Dudes club* because the feminine archetypes at Eurovision have been very restrictive. Women are either singing ballads in long gowns, or are pop girlies doing sexy dances to bangers, or are young ingenues singing cute songs, or are witches, and there’s not much outside of these categories.
At first, Miriana looked like a typical pop girlie. Yes, her live performance had some weird touches in it, but at the time, the focus was the Kant. However, the Serving video lets Weird Miriana shine. This woman is in on the joke and game for anything.
What is she serving?
A hot meal apparently! (The Coke can curlers!)
Are you calling Miriana trash for using the word Kant?
She’s out here making trash glam, baby!
Miriana even goes so far as to poke fun at the traffic accident that sent her to the hospital the night of her victory, starting her video lying on a hospital bed before winking and slipping into full sex kitten mode.
Yes, Miriana is using sexiness as part of her persona, but she is not afraid to look silly in order to make a point or get a laugh and promote her song. Take, for example, her recent experience at Eurovision in Concert, where she dressed up as a stroopwaffel and lay down in the street for a joke:
@mirianaconte Jet lagged but delicious, I’m here Amsterdam🫦 #DivadowninDam#serving#esc2025#redlightdistrict#stroopwafel#amsterdam#jetlag♬ original sound – Miriana Conte
Miriana is winking at us. She is Steve Urkel saying “Did I do that?” She is ending each performance with a butter-wouldn’t-melt moue on her little puss. It is all a big troll – bigger than anything notorious troll Tommy Cash is doing – and I am enjoying every second. The Kant was meant to get our attention. What Malta didn’t tell us was how delightful it would be watching Miriana Conte keep our attention with her sly boots personality and wonderful vocals.
The news the day after Eurovision might be about the audience yelling Kant, which is a shame, because that’s going to overlook the wonderful comedienne who has bloomed in our presence. Bravo, Miriana. Long may you serve.
*Look, one might make the argument that Sylvia Night is in the Weird Little Dudes club, but I think her appearance pre-dates social media to the point where she never got the traction to be covered in the same way beyond her diva character, which required her to also be glam at all times (unless she was having a breakdown). The Weird Little Dude is a more recent phenomenon at the contest.
dudepoints.fun 