Roxen (singer)

Born Larisa Roxana Giurgiu on 5 January 2000 in Cluj-Napoca, Roxen discovered her passion for music at the age of seven. She also took singing and piano lessons as a child.[1][2][3] Signed by Global Records,[4] she was featured on Romanian producer Sickotoy's "You Don't Love Me" in August 2019.[5] The single attained commercial success in Romania, reaching number three on the country's Airplay 100 chart,[6] and being playslisted by radio stations in several territories including France, United States, Russia and Spain.[1] Her debut single "Ce-ți cântă dragostea" released later that year in November peaked at number one in Romania.[6] Music critics have since regarded the singer's primary genre as being deep house,[1] and compared her music style and appearance to that of Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish.[7] In a București FM interview, Roxen cited Beyoncé as one of her major inspirations.[8]

In early February 2020, it was reported that Roxen was one of three artists shortlisted to represent Romania at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020; broadcaster Romanian Television (TVR) had collaborated with Global Records for the selection.[9][10] On 11 February, she was revealed by TVR as the Romanian representative.[11] Her five songs for Selecția Națională—"Alcohol You", "Beautiful Disaster", "Cherry Red", "Colors" and "Storm"—were released on 21 February.[12] "Alcohol You" emerged as the winner of the national final on 1 March.[13] However, on 18 March, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced the cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 due to the pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China and its spread to other countries.[14] Although TVR had considered retaining "Alcohol You" as a song for the Eurovision Song Contest 2021,[15] EBU soon after announced that intended 2020 entries were not eligible for the following year.[16] Roxen was nonetheless internally selected for the 2021 contest.[17]

In June 2020, the singer was hired as the brand ambassador for Romanian box-dye hair color product Loncolor Expert HEMPstyle; she appeared on product packagings and in a commercial which prominently featured the Selecția Națională entry "Storm".[18] Starting with the release of "How to Break a Heart" in July, Roxen has been benefiting from a promotional campaign for which Global Records partnered with Warner Music.[19] In October, she scored her second number-one single on the Airplay 100 with "Spune-mi".[6]