From: The Netherlands
DJ style: “House, trap, electro.”
Best known for: “‘Take Over Control’.”
Away from making and playing music for himself, Afrojack is as busy as anyone. This year he launched Global Remix Battle I, a competition that invites producers from around the world to submit their remixes for the chance to win big: the prize includes an artist development contract with Afrojack’s Wall Recordings, having a release on the label and a pair of high-end monitors. They are testament to the Dutchman’s desire to help bring through the next generation, having broken through at such a young age himself.
“I see kids down in the dumps and they don’t have the money for the right laptop or the right plug-ins,” he told EDM.com earlier in the year. “Well, if we make a deal to work together for a few years, I believe in you, so I’ll invest in you. I’ll promote you, I’ll give you a place to stay, I’ll give you the right laptop. Let’s go, let’s have some fun.”
Afrojack started DJing aged just 14, and by his early twenties he’d had worldwide hits and soon entered our Top 100 poll, climbing ever higher since. Essential Mixes, features on Pitbull’s No.1 hit single ‘Give Me Everything’ and contributions to Beyonce’s ‘Run The World (Girls)’ all followed. By 2013 he was one of the highest-earning DJs in the world and became an in-demand producer with David Guetta and even Madonna.
This year he has put out his ‘Press Play’ EP as well as ‘One More Day’, a new collaboration with Wall Recordings’ newest members Jewelz & Sparks. It has a big halftime drop, which proved quite the innovation and always gets huge reactions. “I don’t really care to achieve mainstream success,” he has said of the track. “I just care that it makes people go like, ‘Oh shit, that’s so cool, I never thought of that!’”
In terms of gigs, he did a huge North American tour after focusing on Europe and Asia before that. He has said that he feels like it’s very much time for America to go back to more pure dance music. “When the EDM movement started back in 2010 and 2011, everything was purely about dance and then over the last couple of years it got very like, ‘Oh, let’s make a dance-pop song’. I was guilty of that too, of course, with a couple of songs like ‘Give Me Everything’, which is fun, but people are down with EDM and they’re jumping on the hip-hop bandwagon now. So we can have our own parties and they can go to hip-hop shows and do whatever they want. I’m actually kind of happy with that situation.”
With Afrojack still at the sharp end and dictating trends, anything is possible.
Words: KRISTAN CARYL
