Perhaps the most vibrant of performers of our time with a relentless energy behind the decks, Steve Aoki has quickly ascertained his position at the top of the game as one of the top notch DJ’s of our time. Notoriously known for the frenzied interventions at his gigs such as cake smashing, popping bottles of champagne, acrobatic crowd surfing, riding rafts on the dance floor to name a few, nobody can deny his penchant for being one of the most hard working performers of our generation with an aura and mystique that draws packed crowds to all his events. Breaking records with his jam-packed touring schedules, Steve Aoki defines a time in electronic music where artists and audiences are united ceremoniously through a party-till-you-drop attitude!

India is all geared up once again to welcome the American electro house musician as he performs in Delhi on the 29th of November and then in Mumbai on the 30th of November at the Enchanted Valley Carnival’s Launch Party. But lets take a moment and recap the stellar career of this California based DJ. Here are some highlights from his journey!

Steve Aoki would run underground concerts during his college days.

Steven Hiroyuki Aoki grew up in Newport Beach, California and graduated from Newport Harbor High School in 1995, where he was a star player on the varsity badminton team. It is a known fact that Steve Aoki first started playing chess at the age of 4 and was once ranked one of the top 250 players in the world. He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara and graduated with 2 BAs; one in Feminist Studies and the other in Sociology. In college, he ran underground concerts out of his Biko roos in the Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative which as a concert venue, became known as The Pickle Patch.

Aoki founded his own label, ‘Dim Mak Records’, in 1996.

Steve Aoki grew up listening to punk rock and hardcore artists from Minor Threat and Born Against to Gorilla Biscuits. He was also a vocalist for This Machine Kills briefly from 1997 to 2000. They released their album on Ebullition Records and after their split, Steve started out DJing indie and hip-hop tracks, which eventually led to him producing his own remixes and original material. It was around this period, in 1996, that Steve Aoki decided to launch his own record label. He was a mere 20 years old when he founded his record label, Dim Mak Records!

What many people don’t know is that one of the most talented DJ’s of our time first got asked to DJ at a club only in 2004, even though he had a love for hip-hop and rock, but only owned one turntable! It was then that his good friend DJ AM showed Aoki how to scratch and beat-match. Dim Mak Records, however, continued its stupendous rise as the label released music by other electro house artists over the years such as Datsik, Infected Mushroom, Dada Life, Zeds Dead, apart from Aoki’s own collaborations with Tiesto, MSTRKRFT, The Bloody Beetroots, Felix Cartal and Mustard Pimp to name a few. The label has released over 250 records so far.

Aoki’s debut mix album, Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles was released in January 2008.

Featuring guest vocalists Steve Bays (Hot Hot Heat), Mickey Avalon, Todd Fink (The Faint), and Uffie alongside crafty remixers like MSTRKRFT, Erol Alkan, Soulwax, and Weird Science, Aoki, as expected, had chosen a bunch of anthemic remixes for his fantastic mix debut. Though tracks like Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E. (MSTRKRFT Remix)” and Klaxons’ “Gravity’s Rainbo (Soulwax Remix)” had been club favourites at the time, remixes of “Low Life” and “Gravity’s Rainbo” were praised by critics, some who even added that they may have surpassed the original! Aoki had compiled the best remixes from the indie-electro scene of 2007 to release his debut mix album to critical and commercial acclaim.

Steve considered his Grammy nomination for his album “Wonderland” his ‘Biggest Accomplishment’

It’s hard to believe that ‘Wonderland’ was Steve Aoki’s first proper album release! Released in early January 2012 and featuring guest vocalists and musicians such as LMFAO, Kid Cudi, Travis Barker, Zuper Blahq, Wynter Gordon, Rivers Cuomo, Lil Jon, Chiddy Bang, amongst others. Wonderland was nominated for the Best Dance/Electronic album at the Grammy awards alongside contemporaries such as Skrillex, Chemical Brothers, Kaskade, and Deadmau5. At the time, Steve said that “there’s no way I’m going to win. I’m just happy to be nominated. I’m still celebrating in my head. Every time I smile, it’s because I’m thinking about the nomination.”

Besides all the hectic touring, Aoki has been consistently collaborating with other fellow producers and thus far has released singles with The Bloody Beetroots, Armand Van Helden of Duck Sauce, Afrojack, Laidback Luke, Tai, Sidney Samson, Tiesto. He has remixed many artists and bands, including Jackson 5, Drake, Kanye West, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Mike Posner, Girls Generation, All American Rejects, Refused, The Killers,Bassnectar, Lenny Kravitz, Bloc Party, Snoop Dogg, Robin Thicke, S.P.A., Kid Cudi, Fërnando Oviedo, Chester French and Peaches. With a portfolio so rich and diverse of musical cultures, Aoki’s contemporaries too have often lauded his work ethic and professionalism as well as eye-catching enthusiastic stage endeavors! Aoki is now in the post-production stage of his second album ‘Neon Future’, the release dates of which are yet to be announced.

Forbes magazine ran a press release on Steve Aoki after he completed a staggering 300 shows in 2012!

Describing him as ‘The World’s Hardest-Working DJ’, Forbes quizzed Aoki on his touring schedules and how he manages his time so effectively. He explained how that through relentless touring he gained huge support from colleges. He added how he had recently started touring with production via bus tours like the Spring 2012 Deadmeat Tour, through which he headlined more than 55 cities in 60 dates across the United States and Canada. He tends to play alongside many of the artists he collaborates with and makes appearances on tour with them. Aoki maintains that his lifestyle is 100% drug and alcohol free as he needs to maintain a physical peak condition for his body to be performing at the rate that he does. Not one to be pinned down, Aoki has always ventured into the unknown as his tour venues touch the most reclusive corners of the planet, bringing music to different cultures and learning about them in exchange.

Steve Aoki is also involved in various other business ventures including a clothing line and restaurants.

Steve Aoki credits his father, Rocky Aoki (founder of the Benihana chain of “Japanese Steakhouse” restaurants), with showing him proper brand management and teaching him the right marketing skills to push himself as an artist, forward. Despite founding his record company at such a young age, Steve Aoki never took shortcuts to success, as he now owns 4 restaurants, a clothing merchandise, a shoes line and the WeSC headphone collection. He is also a co-owner of Deckstar management company which manages artists such as Blink 182, Holy Ghost!, Infected Mushroom, and Rancid. He has also co-founded and is now developing a website that attracts college students to sell, buy, share books, rent rooms, post events called Pillowface. Always playing the odds, his radical business approach seems to have paid off, as he has become one of the highest grossing performers of our time.

Steve Aoki – Aokify-ing everything!

Since 2012, Aoki seems to have been at the centre of everything! Despite his exhaustive business ventures and tireless tour schedule, Steve Aoki has also promoted his collaboration with Dutch DJ/producer Afrojack with the launch of the Afroki energy drink. He was also a special character in 2 NBA games. He also featured in the American TV series Arrow, as a DJ, and was referenced in the hit series Breaking Bad, when the character Jesse Pinkman sports an Aoki t-shirt. Leaving his signature in the form of the Aoki-jump, Steve Aoki has been touring and travelling around the globe, merging the boundaries between entertainment and culture time and again.

Steve Aoki’s coming to India this November.

Having already swooned his fans last year, Steve Aoki returns to the Indian sub-continent to rule our hearts once more and leave us with sweaty shirts and throbbing pulselines! His set at Delhi and Mumbai promises the same innovation that he delivers worldwide (Neon bots please!) as well as the infectious energy he brings to the venue with toe-crushing dance tunes and his infamous antics. Having said earlier this year, that ‘Bollywood is the one thing he’d like to delve into’, and referencing the cross cultural stopovers by artists such as Priyanka Chopra and Akon, Steve Aoki has made his affection towards the hindi film industry very clear! He also insisted on travelling once he’s down in India and promised to visit Historical monuments as well as the ‘intriguing countryside’ of India.

Rest assured, Aoki fans in India have an exciting time to look forward to, as this bundle of energy will soon crash land into our hearts and is sure to deliver a set of cataclysmic proportions, the kind we’d be talking about for a long long time to come!

Click here for ticketing details!