Six artists will compete in this year’s Uuden Musikin Kilpailu (UMK), Finland’s national selection for Eurovision Song Contest 2020. Today the first of the songs was released. The X Factor winner Tika will perform the song “I Let My Heart Break”.
Listen to “I Let My Heart Break”
About the song and the artist
Tika was adopted to Finland from Nepal before she was two-years-old. She has lived most of her life in Karjaa, where 59 percent of the people speak Swedish as their native language. She started singing at a young age and also plays the violin.
Tika has taken part in the Swedish Idol and the Finnish The Voice, but she got her big break in Finnish The X Factor. When taking part in The X Factor in 2018, Tika was coached by Saara Aalto. Saara Aalto actually flew Tika to Lisbon, as the rehearsals for Eurovision started on the week of The X Factor final.
Tika won the contest and released her first single “Live and You Learn” in 2019.
Tika says she loves Eurovision and on her spare time she likes to travel, walk in the nature and listen to murder and crime podcasts. Her biggest idols are former Eurovision-winner Celine Dion and Whitney Houston. Next to singing, she has a education in house painting!
Her entry “I Let My Heart Break” was born in a songwriting camp in Taiwan. The song is written by Finnish Timo Oiva, Petri Somer and Neea Jokinen together with Taiwanese Oliver@i-One Music and Lotus Wang. Sami Tamminen and Kalle Mäkipelto have helped with the production of the song. Petri Somer was one of Finland’s backing singers last year.
The songwriters Timo Oiva and Neea Jokinen say, that during the songwriting process they laughed and cried. During the production, Kalle Mäkipelto and Sami Tamminen wanted to add movie soundtrack feel to the song and a big orchestra.
Tika says the song is “big, powerful and dramatic”, everything she loves in a song. She says that everyone can have a different view on the story, but as she sings it, she thinks about a death of a loved one.
What do you think about “I Let My Heart Break”? Let us know below or on social media @ESCXTRA!
