# Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest 2025

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Azerbaijan will be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 with the song "Run with U", written by Hasan Hayadar, Roman Zee, and Sefael Mishiyev, and performed by the band Mamagama. The Azerbaijani participating broadcaster, İctimai Televiziya (İTV), internally selected its entry for the contest.

## Background

Prior to the 2025 contest, İctimai Televiziya (İTV) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Azerbaijan sixteen times since its first entry in 2008. It had won the contest on one occasion in 2011 with the song "Running Scared" performed by Ell and Nikki. Since its debut in 2008, it had had a string of successful results, qualifying to the final in every contest until in 2018 when it failed to qualify with the song "X My Heart" performed by Aisel. It had placed in the top ten seven times, including a third-place result in 2009 with the song "Always" performed by AySel and Arash, and a second-place result in 2013 with the song "Hold Me" performed by Farid Mammadov. In 2024, it failed to qualify to the final with the song "Özünlə apar" performed by Fahree featuring Ilkin Dovlatov.
As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, İTV organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. The broadcaster confirmed its intentions to participate at the 2025 contest on 3 August 2024. İTV had used various methods to select its entry in the past, including internal selections of both the artist and song, as well as national finals to select its artist followed by an internal selection to determine the song. Between 2011 and 2013, İTV organized a national final titled Milli seçim turu to select the performer, song or both for Eurovision. In 2014, the broadcaster utilised an existing talent show format titled Böyük səhnə where the winning performer would subsequently be given an internally selected song. Since 2015, İTV had internally selected both the artist and song, a procedure which continued for the selection of its 2025 entry.

## Before Eurovision
### Internal selection

On 4 August 2024, İTV announced that both the artist and song that would represent Azerbaijan at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 would be selected internally. Their announcement called for interested artists and songwriters were called upon to submit their applications and entries by 15 September 2024. Songwriters could be of any nationality. 154 submissions were received at the closing of the deadline (49% of which were from local songwriters), from which 12 were selected to proceed to the next stage. Potential performers reported by Azerbaijani media to have been shortlisted by İTV included Mehin Humbatova, Nataone and Murad Arif.
On 4 February 2025, İTV announced that the band Mamagama would represent Azerbaijan. The selection of Mamagama as the Azerbaijani Eurovision contestant was based on the decision of a jury panel consisting of national and international music industry experts; the national members were Elşad Xose (rapper), Diana Hajiyeva (who represented Azerbaijan in 2017), Aysel Teymurzadeh (who represented Azerbaijan in 2009), Heyder (DJ and producer), Faig Sujaddinov [az; fr] (composer), Rain Sultanov (musician), DJ Fateh (presenter and director of İctimai Radio) and Balakishi Gasimov [az] (General Director of İTV). The song to be performed by Mamagama, "Run with U", was written by Hasan Hayadar, Roman Zee, and band member Sefael Mishiyev, and was presented on 19 February 2025 through the release of the official music video via the official Eurovision Song Contest's YouTube channel.