Our November’s Artist Of The Month feature has an artist who defined a whole new genre of electronic music and delivered hits after hits with his unique style. He started with remixing some classic songs and it was only a matter of time before people started noticing, the right kind of people! Without further adieu, let’s talk about the phenomena that is Kygo.
Having been born in Singapore, Kygo ( or Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll) moved around quite a bit during his childhood due to his parents’ jobs taking them places. Kyrre started taking piano lessons at the age of 6, and has had about ten years of training on the instrument. At the age of 15, he started producing music with Logic studio and a MIDI keyboard.
Kyrre was halfway through a business and finance degree at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, when he decided to take up music full time. When deciding the artist name, Kyrre took to the username generated by the learning platform at his high school that took ‘Ky’ from his first name and ‘Go’ from Gørvell-Dahll. Pronounced as Ky-Gu in Norwegian, the word ‘Kygo’ is just plain and it sticks, even for English pronunciation.
Kygo’s oldest SoundCloud uploads show his remixes for the likes of James Blake, Matt Corby, Passenger, The XX, etc, and thus began the era of a new style of electronic music which we all know as tropical house today.
Post a number of remixes, Kygo finally gained attention with his remix for Ed Sheeran’s “I See Fire”, and the rest as they say, is history.
In 2014, he released his single ‘Firestone’ featuring vocals by Conrad Sewell that received a tremendous response. The song charted in multiple countries and became Kygo’s first international hit, making the Norwegian a household name.
With a handful of remixes and a hit debut single under his belt, Kygo’s journey had just began. The Norwegian soon started getting booked for iconic venues and some of the biggest festivals around the world, including Tomorrowland, Ultra Miami, Coachella, TomorrowWorld among many others. His stellar growth as an artist further saw him being signed by Ultra Music and Sony Music.
In 2015, one of Kygo’s IDs got picked as Ultra Music Festival’s official anthem and the same track was featured on EA Sports’ uber-popular game FIFA 16. The vocal version of the same song was released as “Here For You” featuring Ella Henderson, which came as the fourth single from his then-upcoming debut album.
Before that, 2015 saw the release of his second and third singles off the album, “Stole The Show” (featuring Parson James) and “Nothing Left” (featuring Will Heard). In December of 2015, Kygo released another single off the album co-produced by fellow Norwegian record producer William Larsen, featuring sharp vocals by Maty Noyes. The road to the release of Kygo’s debut album was looking quite clear and amazing with such beautiful anthems being released as singles.
Kygo’s debut album Cloud Nine was set to release on 19th February but due to artistic reasons, the release was delayed to 13 May. In the meantime, Kygo delivered three more promotional singles from the album, ‘Fragile’, ‘Raging’ and “I’m In Love“.
Cloud Nine featured 15 tracks, including a lush piano intro by the man himself. The album received mixed reviews from critics, but the fans spoke with their response much louder as the record charted in a number of countries and gained gold and platinum status in several.
The album was also supported by Kygo’s first ever world tour with his staggering live performances. The tour’s planned 22 stops included legendary venues like Barclays Center in New York City, Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam and Le Zenith in Paris.
Apart from the exciting new album launch, 2016 saw the launch of Kygo’s lifestyle brand Kygo Life in the month of August, which is available in Europe, USA and Canada. Later the same month, Kygo performed “Carry Me” with Julia Michaels at the closing ceremony of 2016 Summer Olympics at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, which made him the first house music producer to perform at an Olympics closing ceremony.
At this point, Kygo’s stature in electronic music as one of the biggest producers kept growing. With his signature sound and aesthetic live shows, Kygo’s fanbase was taking only the upwards route. But Kygo had better things planned for 2017!
In the month of February, Kygo unveiled his collaboration with Selena Gomez titled, “It Ain’t Me.” The song showed a matured sound from Kygo and was received tremendously well around the world, as well as receiving numerous remixes, including an AFTR:HRS remix from the legend Tiesto himself!
“It Ain’t Me” came as the first single off Kygo’s recently released Stargazing EP. As the second single, Kygo unveiled yet another huge collaboration in the form of “First Time” with none other than Ellie Goulding. For the EP, Kygo also remixed U2′s “You’re The Best Thing About Me“, which was released as a collaborative single with the band.
Last month, Kygo dropped another major news that his second studio album, “Kids In Love” is set to release on November 3 (this Friday), and released the title track from the album.
For the release week, Kygo has been dropping a single everyday and we’ve already seen the release of “Never Let You Go (with John Newman), ‘Sunrise’ (with Jason Walker), “Riding Shotgun” (with Oliver Nelson and Bonnie McKee), ‘Stranger Things’ (with OneRepublic) and With You (with Wrabel).
Kygo is set to support his second album with another world tour which will also be including the parts that were left out in Cloud Nine tour, and yes, India is also on the list. The last time India saw Kygo was his headlining performance at Sunburn Festival 2015 and since then Kygo has grown quite a bit.
Kygo has been on this journey from the age of 6, and all these years of hard work and dedication have led him to his current stature in the electronic music realm. As he continues growing, his music is sounding more and more mature and we hope to see him continue putting out some incredible music in the coming future.