Superstar DJ, Entrepreneur, and Sustainability Advocate, Steve Aoki Follows in his Father’s Powerboating Footsteps, Entering a Racing Team in the UIM E1 World Championship

August 22, 2023 - Global music pioneer Steve Aoki has decided it’s time to electrify water, announcing that he will lead a new racing team to compete in the UIM E1 World Championship, the world’s first all-electric race boat competition.

Steve Aoki has lived an extraordinary, adrenalin-fueled life, sharing his passion for music around the world as a hugely successful DJ, music producer, and entrepreneur.

He’s now set to follow in his father’s footsteps by taking his energy and drive to the water. Rocky Aoki, the former wrestler who founded the popular Benihana restaurant chain, was also an offshore powerboat racer in the 1970s and 1980s, even surviving a near-fatal crash in 1979 under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Aoki joins an illustrious line-up of team owners with five teams already announced, led by NFL superstar Tom Brady, tennis legend Rafa Nadal, F1 icon Sergio Perez, former Chelsea soccer star Didier Drogba, and the Venice Racing team - and more will be unveiled in the coming weeks.

Steve Aoki, said: “The UIM E1 World Championship not only offers me a chance to continue my father’s racing legacy on the water, but this time going electric!

“E1 is a great blend of adrenaline, sport, sustainability, and fun, and I can’t wait to develop our team to entertain fans with our racing and our parties, inspiring change and bringing people together. I’m proud to follow in my dad’s footsteps and I can’t wait to go full throttle on and off the water against the likes of Tom Brady, Rafael Nadal and Sergio Perez. I love creating outside of my usual spaces, so I’ll be seeing you all on the dockside as we electrify racing on the water.”

For over three decades, Steve Aoki has been making people dance. He’s one of the highest grossing dance artists in the world, regularly playing over 300 gigs a year to tens of thousands of revellers, week-in, week-out.

Known for his addictive remixes, he has collaborated with artists such as BTS, Lil Uzi Vert, Blink-182, Linkin Park, will.i.am, Louis Tomlinson, and Fall Out Boy to name a few. His electric energy has built an incredible community of millions of fans on social media and nearly 4 billion streams.

Through the UIM E1 World Championship, Aoki will be competing, performing and creating all at once, bringing music and captivating shows to E1 events, which are designed to be a powerful platform mixing sport, entertainment and tangible change to build a more sustainable future for our planet and our waters. 

As an entrepreneur, Aoki has built his own record label and made successful investments in esports, blockchain and the metaverse, as well as establishing himself as a fashion visionary and a published author.

But Aoki also has a deep commitment to sustainability, within fashion, music and technology. He wants to leave a positive legacy, inspiring change for more sustainable living, especially for the marine environment. His memoir was titled “Blue: The Color of Noise”, and his passion to protect the big blue around us has attracted him to take the helm of a team in the UIM E1 World Championship.

Rodi Basso, Co-Founder & CEO of the UIM E1 World Championship, said: “The UIM E1 World Championship continues to attract leaders in sport, business, and entertainment to spearhead teams to compete in our inaugural electric racing season. We’re so proud to welcome Steve Aoki to the E1 racing family. We’re a new concept and it’s exciting to see these international stars join us as we grow our fleet - it’s a really successful model for us. We’ve already welcomed sporting icons in Brady, Nadal and Perez, so it’s great to welcome a big name from the world of entertainment, and we’re excited about the pipeline of stars who are also keen to build their own teams. Watch this space!”

 

Stay tuned for more updates and announcements. To learn more about the UIM E1 World Championship, visit the website at - www.e1series.com

 

ABOUT STEVE AOKI: Counting nearly 3 billion music streams to his name, Steve Aoki is a true visionary. Billboard described the 2x-GRAMMY-nominated music producer, artist, fashion designer, entrepreneur, NFT futurist and Dim Mak Records founder as “one of the most in-demand entertainers in the world.” A Guinness World Record holder for the “Most Traveled Musician in a Single Calendar Year,” Aoki has performed at nearly every top festival around the world, including Coachella, Ultra Music Festival, Lollapalooza, Fuji Rock Festival, Tomorrowland and Electric Daisy Carnival. In 2022, Aoki also graced recent covers of Entrepreneur Magazine, Electronic Musician, and Adweek as their “Visionary of the Year.”  As a globally successful cross-genre solo artist, Aoki has collaborated with an impressive list of varied artists, including BTS, Maluma, Snoop Dogg, Linkin Park, blink-182, One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson, Machine Gun Kelly, Lil Uzi Vert, 2 Chainz and Daddy Yankee, on top of having released three Platinum singles, six Gold singles, and over ten Top 10 radio records. After unveiling four Neon Futurealbums, Aoki recently released HiROQUEST: Genesis, featuring collaborations with Taking Back Sunday, Mod Sun, Kane Brown and more.  Aoki approaches each new endeavor with the same sense of dedication he’s put into his past achievements, including the Grammy-nominated Netflix documentaryI’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2016) and his memoir BLUE: The Color of Noise (2019). In 2012, he also founded THE AOKI FOUNDATION to support organizations in brain science and its research. His influential record label Dim Mak, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2021, is known for being a launching pad for the careers of prominent acts like Bloc Party, The Chainsmokers, Bloody Beetroots, The Kills, Zedd and Diplo. Most recently, Aoki created the A0K1VERSE, an NFT membership community, powered by the Passport, that welcomes his fans to both virtual and real-world experiences. Aoki is also executive producer for “American Hiro,” a series in development with FX Networks directed by Jon M. Chu, chronicling the life of his father, Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki, the legendary entrepreneur and daredevil businessman who created the Benihana empire. In whatever space Steve Aoki enters, the multi-hyphenate innovator continues to set trends and inspire creativity on a global level.   MORE FROM STEVE AOKI: ONLINE | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER   For more information on Steve Aoki, please contact Allison Elbl or Rebecca Shapiro or Mike Jones or Victoire Selce at Shore Fire Media.