Deen

Deen, born Fuad Backović in Sarajevo in 1982, is a Bosnian pop singer who has represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at the Eurovision Song Contest twice. His stage name comes from the Arabic word dīn, "faith", and his songs mix disco with glossy pop.

He took his first musical steps at the age of twelve, recording his first song in 1994 at Studio Number 1, the studio of the public broadcaster. In 1997 he became the lead singer of the Bosnian boy band 7Up (Seven Up), which released the albums Otvori oči (1998) and Seven (2000) and was a success in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. In 1998 his voice caught the attention of the National Theatre in Sarajevo, which invited him to sing the lead with the opera choir in its production of Carmina Burana.

Deen then went solo and released his first album, Ja sam vjetar zaljubljeni, in 2002. The same year he recorded the duet "Poljubi me" with Croatian singer Vlatka Pokos, and he later sang "Ja imam nekog" with Anabela. Singers such as Davorin Popović, Kemal Monteno and Hajrudin Varešanović praised his voice.

In 2004 he represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at Eurovision in Istanbul with "In the Disco", written by Vesna Pisarović. He finished ninth with 91 points, which gave the country a direct place in the next year's final. The albums In the Disco (2004) and Anđeo sa greškom (2005) followed, and his best-known songs from those years include "Anđeo sa greškom", "Taxi", "Znam", "Laži me" and "Apsolutno tvoj".

In 2008 he took part in the reality show Farma and then stepped back from music to study fashion business at the Istituto Marangoni in Milan. Even so, "Bez trunke srama" became a big hit in early 2009, and he went on to release "Voli me hitno" with Verena Cerovina in 2012 and "Rane manje bole" in 2013.

In November 2015 the Bosnian broadcaster BHRT announced that Deen would return to Eurovision together with Dalal Midhat-Talakić, joined on stage by cellist Ana Rucner and rapper Jala Brat. Their song "Ljubav je" premiered at the Sarajevo City Hall on 19 February 2016. In Stockholm they sang in the first semi-final but did not reach the final, the first time Bosnia and Herzegovina had missed it since semi-finals began in 2004. After the contest Deen stepped away from music again.