Sara Jovanović


Sara Jovanović, also known under stage name Sara Jo, is an Italian-born Serbian singer-songwriter and dancer. She rose to prominence as the second runner-up on the singing competition Prvi glas Srbije in 2012. As a member of Moje 3, Jovanović then represented Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 with "Ljubav je svuda".
She was also nominated for the Best Adria Act at the 2017 MTV Europe Music Awards.

Life and career

Personal life

Sara Jovanović was born on 29 October 1993 in Rome, Italy, to Serbian parents Saša and Jasna Jovanović and was raised bilingually in Serbian and Italian. Her mother is as a kindergarten teacher, while her father works as a diplomat. Due to her fathers job they moved several times back and forth between Serbia and Italy, but eventually made Belgrade their permanent home when Sara was fifteen years old. She attended University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology, studying Italian language.
Throughout the years, Jovanović was romantically involved with rapper and writer Marčelo, volleyball player Aleksandar Atanasijević and actor Viktor Savić.

Career

In early 2011, Jovanović won a singing contest organized by Serbian magazine Story with the covers she was posting on YouTube. As a reward, she recorded her debut song "Zauvek", which she performed on the popular late-night talk show Veče sa Ivanom Ivanovićem, broadcast on TV Prva. The following year Jovanović was featured on four songs released by rapper MCN for his self-titled debut album. Jovanović received wider media exposure by appearing on the second season of Serbian televised singing competition Prvi glas Srbije, aired on TV Prva in 2012, where she placed third overall. Serbian edition of Cosmopolitan cited her as the "new energy on the music scene" because of her showmanship during the live show performances.
performing at the first dress rehearsal of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013; left to right: Mirna Radulović, Nevena Božović and Sara Jovanović
In February the following year, it was announced that Jovanović, alongside two other show finalists Nevena Božović and Mirna Radulović, will form a girl-group Moje 3 to compete in the national selection competition to represent Serbia on the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö, Sweden. They subsequently performed "Ljubav je svuda" at the Beosong music festival, winning the contest with 42,5% of the public votes. On 14 May, Moje 3 performed last at the Eurovision's first semi-final, placing 11th with 46 points and thus failed to qualify for the final. Furthermore, they also received Barbara Dex Award for the worst dressed act. Later that year Sara launched her own t-shirt line. Between September and December, she also participated in the first Serbian series of Your Face Sounds Familiar, where she finished as the runner-up behind singer Ana Kokić.
In June 2014, Jovanović released her first solo single, titled "Ko je ovde ko". Same year, she covered "Provokacija" by Montenegrian singer Boban Rajović for the movie Mali Budo and Moby Dick's "Troje" for the purposes of the film Jesen samuraja.
In 2017, Sara Jo signed to Belgrade-based hip-hop record label Bassivity Music and released her electropop single "Nemam vremena za to" produced by Coby. In June, she released a dancehall promotional single "Samo ti" for Tuborg GreenFest under Universal Music Serbia, which samples Major Lazer's "Tuborg Beat" courtesy of Mad Decent.
During the summer of 2019 she performed at the Exit festival and at the Belgrade Pride in September. Also that year, Sara Jo served as a mentor in the singing contest Discovered by Coke organised by Coca-Cola. Her candidate, Predrag Simić, eventually won the competition.
In January 2020, Jovanović performed a medley of her hits at the 2020 Music Awards Ceremony.

Discography

;Singles