The Black Mamba ”Love Is on My Side” | Portugal Eurovision 2021 Interview

We speak with Pedro Tatanka and Miguel Casais — the founding members of The Black Mamba. The group, which explores the universe of blues, soul and funk, will sing "Love Is on My Side" for Portugal at Eurovision 2021. The Festival da Canção winners discuss their song, which was inspired by an old woman they met in Amsterdam's Red Light District during a tour of the Netherlands. She fell into drugs and prostitution, but never gave up hope that love was on her side.

"We were playing in this small coffee shop called The Bulldog and we were staying overnight two doors from that," Tatanka says. "We had all our meals there and had the opportunity to meet a lot of people at the counter who told us their story. That old lady was one of those [people] we had the luck to meet. Her story really inspired me. She had a really, really sad story. She managed to flee an [Eastern European country] in the late 60s or early 70s. She was young, had loads of dreams, she thought it was the perfect opportunity to be happy and to change her life in a better way. But everything went wrong. She became a drug addict. She became a street prostitute. She had a really sad life. But at the same time she told me she felt love was always by her side, that love would always overcome evil and violence. After all she'd been through it was really inspiring me."

They have no plans to release the song in Portuguese, and believe that the power of music conquers language barriers. "We respect everyone's opinion. There are people who would rather go with a Portuguese song, but we are proud to represent this change."