Concert in your area for Electronic and Pop.
Find out more about Electronic and Pop.
Born in 1977, he was the son of a famous Japanese wrestler and restaurant-chain owner Rocky Aoki eventually going on to graduate from the University of Carolina. While still in his twenties he found the time to form a record label named Dim Mak in homage to his childhood hero Bruce Lee.
In its infancy, Dim Mak was known for working with a diverse range of artists from all genres and has been instrumental in launching the careers of artists like Bloc Party and The Gossip. The label soon began to focus more on Steve’s specialty, electronic music, and is now recognised as one of most influential establishments in the dance music world.
The label’s profile was further boosted with the release of Aoki’s first album ‘Wonderland’. Featuring artists as diverse as Weezer’s River Cuomo to Kid Cudi it was a huge success with every song on the album being released as a single with its own remixes.
To support his music Steve tours constantly and has become known for unpredictable and exciting live shows. Even while performing an average of 250 shows a year he still finds the energy to be crowd surfing and dancing with his crowds all of which helped him to achieve 6th place in DJ Times magazine’s ‘America’s best DJ competition’ in 2013.
With the release of the first part of his new double-album, ‘Neon Future’ on Dim Mak, Steve looks set to continue to be one of the most popular electronic artists in the world.
The duo are mainly known for creating techno and hard style music yet include many EDM styles including progressive and house. They have been known to work with some of the most prolific and celebrated artists on the dance music circuit such as Tiesto and Angger Dimas through their 2012 project entitled Crazy Collabs. In December 2013 they founded their own label Skink Records which a sub-label of Spinnin' Records.
There were rumours in 2014 that the band would be following their 2009 album 'Analogue Players In A Digital World' with a new release, returning to hardstyle yet the duo rubbished the claims started by a rave news publisher. They did however achieve chart success in 2014 with a number of non-album singles including a collaboration with David Guetta entitled 'Bad' which charted at #22 in the UK charts and within the top ten in France and Belgium. 'Cannonball' which featured both Justin Prime and Matthew Koma managed to chart within the top 30 of the UK singles chart.
They have produced music for artists including Chris Brown and have built a solid reputation for themselves in a relatively short space of time. They have gained a large fan base who continue to sell out the duo's live shows and tours.
Rrose who played a lovely set. I Hate Models was a huge let down after all the hype he is getting, the set was too much of the same thing: high BPM, lame transition no subtlety. I guess I'll stick to listening his production.
There no denying the Steve Aoki is epic when it comes to his live shows. He clearly does what he does for no other reason than “because its fun.” He’s been known to crowd surf, spray champagne all over the crowd, and crowd raft…yes raft. EDM sets are always energetic, but Steve Aoki seriously takes it to another level.
Unfortunately for me, the set that I caught him was very mild, mainly due to the location in which I saw him. He was the headliner for the EDM stage at Heat Festival at the University of California, Riverside; but by stage, it was really just the third floor of the Commons area in the middle of campus. What this really meant was that there was no crowd surfing of any sort, but the set was still sick. Spinning things like “Warp,” “One More Time” remixed by him and, my personal favorite remix of Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness.” His transitions and fade-aways are flawless!
I really wish that I could have seen him in a better setting, and plan to eventually see him again, maybe for his Afroki collaboration with Afrojack. Regardless, considering I didn’t have to pay for this festival, I’m satisfied with the set that I was able to see from Steve Aoki.
Showtek live is all about dance and music. At the Ultra Music Festival in Miami 2014 they brought the house down. The Dutch brothers came out and from minute one they were playing music that had people hopping, dancing, and having a good time.
Put your hands together, they said, as the audience followed suit and began to clap in rhythm. The audience united in the freedom of the dance and beats the brothers were bringing forth. It was nothing short of an audience full of lovers, brought together by music and dance and sounds of all kinds.
Showtek brought the party to Miami. When asked who was there to party hard the hands of the audience were raised up high. And then came the light show. Expertly crafted and trance-inducing. It made the whole brightly lit beach into a driving, thumping night club for an hour. It seemed like many more hours. As that hour started to end they continued their upbeat, thriving music and lights, but brought in beautiful dancers to the stage just to make it an even more pleasurable experience for all involved. You cannot go wrong with a Showtek show, they are all about the entertainment.