| Salvador Sobral | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Sobral on the Europa Song Contest red carpet in Malmö in 3 | |
| Background | |
| Birth name | Salvador Vilar Braamcamp Sobral |
| Born |
28 December 1989 Lisbon, Portugal |
| Occupation | Singer |
| Instruments | Vocals, piano |
| Years active | 2009–present |
| Label | Valentim de Carvalho |
| Associated acts | Noko Woi, Luísa Sobra, Alexander Search |
Salvador Vilar Braamcamp Sobral (born 28 December 1989) is a Portuguese singer, who won the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev, Ukraine for Portugal with the song "Amar pelos dois", written by his sister Luísa Sobral. He gave Portugal its first ever win in the contest since the country's debut in 1964, ending the longest winless run by a country in Eurovision history (53 years). He and his entry currently hold the record of being the highest-scoring winner in Eurovision history, earning a total of 758 points under the current voting system after winning both the jury vote and televote.
Early life[]
Sobral was born in Lisbon and has lived there most of his life. He was born into a formerly noble family, the son of Salvador Luís Cabral Braamcamp Sobral and Luísa Maria Cabral Posser Vilar. His paternal grandparents are Salvador José de Almeida Braamcamp Sobral and Maria Elisa Perestrelo de Matos de Figueiredo Cabral; and his maternal grandparents are João Luís Posser de Andrade Vilar and Luísa Maria de Melo Breyner Freire Cabral. The politician Hermano José Braamcamp de Almeida Castelo Branco was his great-great-great-great-grandfather.
At the age of ten, he participated in the TV programme Bravo Bravíssimo, and at 20 he was one of the ten finalists of Ídolos, the Portuguese version of the Idols franchise. As a finalist, he sang music by Stevie Wonder, Leonard Cohen and Rui Veloso.
He studied Psychology, in Lisbon. He spent time in Mallorca as an Erasmus student, where he started singing in bars.
Salvador Sobral is a fan of Chet Baker and bossa nova singers including Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque. He speaks five languages: Portuguese, Spanish, English, a little Italian and Catalan.
Activism[]
Sobral drew attention to the European migrant crisis by attending the first semi-final winners' press conference in an 'S.O.S. Refugees' shirt. "If I'm here and I have European exposure, the least thing I can do is a humanitarian message," he said. "People come to Europe in plastic boats and are being asked to show their birth certificates in order to enter a country. These people are not immigrants, they're refugees running from death. Make no mistake. There is so much bureaucratic stuff happening in the refugee camps in Greece, Turkey and Italy and we should help create legal and safe pathways from these countries to their destiny countries," he added, earning a round of applause.
Later the EBU imposed a ban preventing him from wearing the shirt for the remainder of the contest. The EBU argued that Sobral's shirt was being used as a "political message", violating the rules of the contest. Sobral argued at his winners' press conference, however, that it held a humanitarian message, not political one.
Discography[]
Albums[]
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| POR | AUT | BEL | BEL | NLD | SPA | SWI | ||
| Excuse Me |
|
1 | 65 | 23 | 92 | 35 | 38 | 31 |
Singles[]
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| POR | AUT | BEL | FRA | GER | NLD | SPA | SWE | SWI | UK | ||||||||||||
| "Excuse Me" | 2016 | 22 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Excuse Me | |||||||||
| "Nem Eu" | 25 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||||||||||
| "Amar pelos dois" | 2017 | 1 | 22 | 30 | 4 | 43 | 35 | 1 | 33 | 6 | 97 | Non-album single | |||||||||
| "—" denotes a single that did not chart or was not released. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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