Annika Eklund (born January 16, 1979 in Vaasa) is a Finnish pop singer. In 2001 in Seinäjoki at a tango contest called Tangomarkkinat, she came second in the females' section. In 1997 she was in platformstar and in 2006 she took part in the Finnish national final of the Eurovision Song Contest, in which she came 3rd with a song called "Shanghain valot" (The Lights of Shanghai). Eklund has performed in various TV-shows; e.g. in Speden Pelit (Spede's Games), Hecumania, and other Finnish TV-shows and she's also appeared in some radio shows. Eklund has performed Finnish dancemusic with his own band from the early teenage years, she's started performing when she was about thirteen years old. Nowadays her band is called Casino-orchestera. Eklund herself drives her tour bus, takes responsibility of her perfomancies, soundtech and does some organizing tour stuff. Annika Eklund made a recording contract with Warner Music in 1997. A year after her first album "Kaunis uni" (A Beautiful Dream) was released and in 2003 came her album "Valoja ja varjoja" (Lights and Shadows). The album was produced by a reknown Eurovision songwriter Mika Toivanen. Annika's latest album, "Shanghain valot", was released in April 2006. Annikas's most known songs are "Shanghain valot", ”On sama kuinka kauas meet” and cover songs, with a band called Yö (Night), ”Särkyvää” and also from the album "Kuolematon" song ”Pettävällä jäällä”. "Pettävällä jäällä" is a duet with the leading singer of Yö: Olli Lindholm. She took part in a tour with Yö called "Kuolematon-tour" which went on in 2005. She is an educated musicpedagog and heads her studies to musicplay schoolteacher's degree.
