Road to Rotterdam: United Kingdom

James Newman was supposed to represent the United Kingdom last year with the song “My last breath”. The BBC was silent for a long time, but eventually announced that he will represent the UK with “Embers” this year. At that time Newman had already had a big international hit with “Therapy”, a song by Armin van Buuren on which Newman provided the vocals. James is also the older brother of John Newman, for whom he also wrote songs. He also did that for Rudimental, Calvin Harris, Little Mix and the Backstreet Boys, among others. So it is not exactly a ‘nobody’ who represents the UK.