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Darude
 

Darude

Fact Sheet

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Darude (Ville Virtanen) is a Finnish DJ. His artist name "Darude" comes from the start of his career. He liked Swedish artist, Leila K, a lot - especially track Rude Boy and he played this track on every event he was playing. When time passed, friends started to call him "Rude Boy" after Leila K's track. After that the name evolved to "The Rude" and "Da Rude" and finally it became "Darude" .

Hoping his tracks would be big hits someday, Darude started making his music on a PC first, and then moved on to samplers and decks. His first hit single "Sandstorm", was a result of a collaboration with Finnish producer Jaakko 'JS 16' Salovaara, the man behind successful artists like Bomfunk MC's and Dallas Superstars. Darude landed a deal with Salovaara's 16" records, and co produced the song with Salovaara himself.

The song first conquered the Finnish and other European charts before creeping onto the UK charts (via the Internet at first, getting airplay in discos and clubs before it was officially released to a waiting audience), and finally taking the world by storm. In June 2000 Darude became the first Finnish artist ever to reach top 3 position on UK's single chart. The song was the worldwide number one selling vinyl record in the year 2000, a record of sorts for a trance number. The second single "Feel the Beat" followed in "Sandstorm"'s success, becoming a #1 hit in Finland before becoming a worldwide smash. Darude toured the world for nine months in 2001.

In 2002 he released his second album "Rush". It had one half-hit "Music" and it wasn't a big success.




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