Boaz Mauda (Hebrew: בועז מעודה‎, b. April 23, 1987) is an Israeli singer and songwriter. He won the fifth season of Kokhav Nolad, the Israeli version of Pop Idol, and represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, finishing in 9th place. His voice has been described as somewhere between David D'Or and Dana International. Boaz was born and raised in moshav Elyakim, Israel, where he still lives. He is the youngest son of his mother, who became disabled from complications of his birth. He is of Yemeni descent. Kohav Nolad Without any knowledge in the music industry, and unknown to Boaz, he was signed up by a friend for the auditions of the fifth season of Kohav Nolad. During the show, Boaz sang many Mizrahi and acoustic songs. His voice was loved by the audience and judges. At the finals on August 29, 2007, Boaz competed against Marina Maximillian and Shlomi Bar'el. On that evening he performed two songs: "Señorita" with the experienced Israeli singer David Broza, and then Avner Gadassi's "Menagen veshar" ("Playing and Singing"). He won Kohav Nolad 2007 with 50% of the votes. In addition, he won a contract with the label Hed Artzi. Eurovision Song Contest On November 14, the Israel Broadcasting Authority and Israel's Channel 2 announced that Boaz Mauda was chosen to represent his country at the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade, Serbia. The pre-selection occurred in February 2008 in which Mauda sang five songs, and the audience, together with a jury of Israeli experts, voted for the winning song which was Ke'ilu Kan - a song written by Israel's Eurovision winner Dana International. Mauda participated in the first semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest on May 20, 2008. He ended 5th in the semi-finals and was awarded a spot in the final on May 24, 2008 where he ended 9th with 124 points. Discography On August 3, 2008 Boaz published his first single, Oreaj baolam [A guest in the world] for what will be his new album, which is called Boaz Mauda, as the singer, this song is written by composer Keren Peles. In March 2009 he published his second single, also by Peles, Lajzor Habaita [back home]. He published the song Time to Pray (With Sirusho & Jelena Tomašević), duet with singer Sirusho (Armenian representative in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008, which ranked fourth) and the singer Jelena Tomašević (Serbia representative in the Eurovision Song Contest which was in sixth place). On July 7, 2009 his first studio album with the name "Boaz Mauda" was released. The album contains 11 songs, of which only five were new songs: Ma Yafu Pe'amayich, Better Days, Time to Pray, Shetishaer and Osensia. The song Sha'ar Libech (שער ליבך) is a cover of fellow Eurovision 2008 singer Olta Boka's Albanian entry Zemrën e lamë peng. In 2009 he participated in the series Johnny Hollywood playing the famous singer Izhar Cohen, and in August the same year he began his tour of Israel. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.