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DJ Mag Top100 DJs
26
Kygo
7

Norwegian wunderkind Kygo is truly a unique proposition. He’s scaled the drop-hungry electronic world over the last fours year with his heady blend of tropical house, deep house and downtempo productions instead of one-dimensional EDM bangers.

2016 saw Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll release his platinum-selling debut album, ‘Cloud Nine’, too. His debut long-play spawned some six singles. The latest — ‘Carry Me’, featuring vocals from Julia Michaels — saw Kygo perform it live during this year’s Olympics closing ceremony in Brazil to a worldwide audience in the billions. Before the ceremony, Kygo aptly described this monumental achievement as “the biggest performance of my life”.

He’s also a keen philanthropist, too — he apparently donated the entire profit ($50,000) from one of his concerts to the Rafto Foundation to support LGBT rights in Uganda. “Everyone should be allowed to live openly with their sexuality and the opinions they have,” explained the DJ/producer. After the donation he entered into a partnership with the foundation in order to support Frank Mugisha, a leading activist in Uganda, and his work. Kygo’s generous donation was used to aid activists in purchasing homes, because for many LGBT individuals living in Uganda, their leases are terminated once their sexual orientation is known. “I’m in a situation where I have the opportunity to help now,” he says, humbly, “and will therefore help as much as possible.” 

Kygo has achieved all this at the tender age of just 25. Which really puts his success and philanthropy into perspective. His ability to combine traditional songwriting with day-glo tropical flavours — whilst still drawing in crowds in their thousands for headline DJ shows — means that he is quite literally in a league of his own, with a style he can call his own. All this has propelled him to become one the world’s most successful and revered tropical house DJs. ANDREW RAFTER