Its official! Today the Cypriot broadcaster (CyBC) has announced that Elena Tsagkrinou will represent Cyprus at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 with the song 'El Diablo'. The song is set to be released at a later date.
The first new artist of the 2021 Eurovision season, Elena Tsagkrinou, is one of the most talented and glamorous singers of the Greek pop scene, who managed to stand out from the very first steps of her career. Born in Athens in 1994, at the age of 14 she took part in the talent show ‘Greece Got Talent’, reaching the semifinals. In 2013, she was selected by OtherView as the band's lead singer and with them she released many hits.
After five successful years with OtherView, Elena started her solo career releasing a single with the symbolic title ‘Pame Ap’ Tin Arhi’ (Let’s go from the start) written by Dimitris Kontopoulos and Nikos Moraitis.
Throughout the years, she has performed on the biggest music shows in Greece and Cyprus, at a number of concerts and she has collaborated with many other famous Greek artists such as Konstantinos Argyros and MELISSES. She also has a successful career on television that began in 2014 with her participation, as a coach, on the TV music show ‘Just The 2 Of Us’, while during the 2016-2017 seasons, she co-presented with George Kapoutzidis ‘The Voice of Greece’. Since October 2020, she is presenting her own show, titled ‘K-POP Stars’, on MAD TV, the leading music channel in both Greece and Cyprus.
At the Eurovision Song Contest in 2021, Elena will be performing a song about falling in love with someone as bad as 'El Diablo', a song composed and produced by Jimmy Thornfeld, Laurell Barker, Oxa, and Thomas Stengaard.
You might already know some of these names from other Eurovision songs like 'She Got Me', 'Only Teardrops' and 'You Let Me Walk Alone'. The staging will be organised by artistic director Marvin Dietmann, who also is no stranger to the Eurovision Song Contest.
The artist announcement from Cyprus is the first new artist announced that is not from the Eurovision 2020 artist line up.
This year Sandro, a Greek-American from Germany, was set to represent Cyprus at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 with the song ‘Running’. The entry was composed and written by Australian Alfie Arcuri along with Sebastian Metzner Rickards, Octavian, Sandro and Teo DK. Alfie finished in fifth placed in ‘Eurovision - Australia Decides 2019’ and is the winner of ‘The Voice Australia’ 2016.
Unfortunately this year’s Contest didn’t eventuate due to COVID-19 and Sandro parted ways with the Cypriot delegation.
Cyprus debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest back in 1981 with the Island performing ‘Μόνικα’ finishing up in 6th place. Over the years Cyprus managed to reach fifth place three times firstly in 1982 with Anna Vissi’s ‘Μόνο η αγάπη’ and then again in 1997 with Hara & Andreas Constantinou ‘Μάνα μου’ and again in 2004 with Lisa Andreas’s power ballad ‘Stronger Every Minute’. It wouldn’t be until 2018 when Cyprus would get its best result yet when Eleni Foureira stormed Eurovision Song Contest with her runner up placed epic banger ‘Fuego’.