Eugent Bushpepa
Eugent Bushpepa was born 2 July 1984, also known by his alternative name Gent Bushpepa, is an Albanian singer, songwriter and composer. Regarded as one of the most popular modern rock musicians in the Albanian-speaking world, he is noted for his vocal range, vocal power, high-energy live performances, and is also recognized as an accomplished guitarist.
Bushpepa and his band were the supporting acts on the concert tours of Deep Purple in 2007, Duff Mckagan (Guns N’ Roses) in 2011 and Overkill in 2014. On 18 August 2013, he performed a full concert with Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal. Bushpepa is the sole author of his song which was reworked for the Eurovision by Jim Lowe, a Grammy Award-winning British record producer and audio engineer.
In 2017, Bushpepa won the 56th edition of Festivali i Këngës with the song "Mall" and went on to represent Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon.
He started singing at the age of six while his guitar training began in the fifth grade of primary school. After finishing high school, he moved to Bologna, Italy, to study medicine where he completed his first academic year.
Bushpepa's professional career began in 2006 and since then he has been active in the Albanian music scene. His national breakthrough came with the song “Maska e Madhështisë", released in 2007 at Top Fest 4. In the same competition, he also teamed up with a rock band called Sunrise, performing their song Engjëll, and then he went on to play in major music festivals and worked on new music. Although Eugent made his professional stage debut in Kënga Magjike at the age of fourteen, his music career was jump-started upon his return to Albania in 2006 where he was set to pursue a medical degree in dentistry and started to perform live shows in various night clubs and pubs alongside studies. Writing and performing his own material, Bushpepa had also made various live covers and appeared in over 2000 live shows since his beginnings.