Darude

Darude is a Finnish DJ and producer best known for the iconic dance hit 'Sandstorm'.

Darude was born Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen in Eura, Finland on July 17th 1975. He began experimenting with music production while attending Turku Polytechnic. When, while DJing at a party, he played Leila K's 'Rude Boy' a classmate gave him the song's title as a nickname. It stuck, morphing first to Da Rude and finally to Darude.

He began sending demos to radio stations in the late 1990s. His breakthrough came when Darude teamed up with JS16 (Jaakko Salovaara) to release his track 'Sandstorm' as a single in 1999. It proved an international smash hit, going platinum, occupying the Swedish dance chart number one spot for 17 weeks and reaching number three in the UK. It paved the way for Darude's debut album, 'Before the Storm' (2000), which sold 800,000 copies and won the DJ three Finnish Grammy Awards. From there he has released 'Rush' (2003), 'Label This!' (2007) and 'Moments' (2015).

In 2019 Darude was the Finnish representative at the Eurovision Song Contest, performing 'Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu' with Sebastian Rejman.