Bio : Steve Aoki
Steve Aoki is many things—Grammy-nominated music producer, artist, fashion designer, entrepreneur and innovator—but there’s one key thing that connects everything he does. Aoki, one of the most successful American cross-genre artists and a deeply forward-thinking creator, brings a sense of community to all of his work, offering shared spaces and connections for like-minded fans and fellow artists.
It’s a sensibility that’s at the core of his new album, HiROQUEST 2: Double Helix which extends the universe he introduced on 2022’s HiROQUEST: Genesis. This album, Aoki’s 8th studio LP, builds on that epic, multi-genre collection of songs, which drew on Aoki’s history with alternative rock bands and embraced contemporary musical trends like Latin and pop while retaining his signature EDM aesthetic. Like HiROQUEST: Genesis, which was conceived, written, and recorded during the pandemic, HiROQUEST 2: Double Helix offers catchy songs alongside a deeper narrative. Aoki shifted his focus to Latin and dance, a genre that harkens back to his roots as a producer. The songs, recorded primarily in Las Vegas and Miami, embrace that sense of nostalgia while also pushing into the future.
“Dance is my heart and soul,” Aoki explains. “It pumps my blood through my veins. It truly is my calling. I'm always trying to find a deeper connection with my fans at my shows and the truest and purest way is through electronic music. I love working with artists like Akon, where we can bring back an old song in a new way. By revisiting music from my past, I can make it new and fresh for 2023.”
“Kids,” which Aoki created with Tony Junior, reimagines MGMT’s 2007 hit, while “Locked Up” reworks the aforementioned Akon track, which dropped in 2003. For “Won’t Forget This Time” Aoki teamed up with KAAZE and John Martin, whose soaring vocals are synonymous with the early 2010 EDM sound Aoki wanted to evoke on the track. The musician fused his love of Latin and dance on “Paranoia,” a collaboration with Danna Paola, and tapped Ángela Aguilar for a Spanish-language number that recalls an ‘80s track Aguilar grew up with.
Aoki’s music, which he releases both under his own name and through a number of aliases, has been his primary endeavor since the release of Wonderland, his debut solo album, in 2012. The LP earned him his first Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronica Album and Aoki has since collaborated with an impressive list of international artists, including BTS, Maluma, Linkin Park, blink-182, One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson, Machine Gun Kelly, Lil Uzi Vert, 2 Chainz and Daddy Yankee. He boasts 17. 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify, with a 77 million average monthly reach across all his platforms. He’s released three Platinum singles, six Gold singles and has produced over ten Top 10 radio records. His label, Dim Mak, is credited with discovering influential acts like Bloc Party, The Chainsmokers, Bloody Beetroots and The Kills. After unveiling four Neon Future albums, the most recent being Neon Future IV in 2020, HiROQUEST opened the door to a new adventure.
Performing live has always been an essential aspect of Aoki’s music career. Prior to the pandemic, he counted over 250 tour dates per year and in the past year he’s averaged 200 tour dates. He also holds the Guinness World Record as the “Most Traveled Musician in a Single Calendar Year,” an accolade he earned in 2012. In addition to multiple headlining tours, he’s performed at nearly every top festival around the world, including Coachella, Ultra Music Festival, Lollapalooza, Fuji Rock Festival, Tomorrowland and Electric Daisy Carnival. Ultimately, Aoki wants to work in exciting spaces with exciting artists, and to bring the spirit of connection and discovery to everything he does.
Aoki’s vision, and passion for forward-thinking technology, community, health, and science landed him on the cover of Adweek as their Creator Visionary of the Year, as well as on the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine. “I love tapping into these worlds with a lot of passion,” he notes. “That gives me a purpose. I want to go where the passion is and make some noise there.”
Aoki has continued expanding in niche spaces in the fashion and gaming worlds, as well. The artist designs the vibrant Aoki 1 of 1 clothing collection, which features one-of-a-kind apparel items alongside Dim Mak’s ongoing collaborations with IPs like Dragon Ball Z, The Matrix and Godzilla. He is the co-founder of MetaZoo, a wildly successful trading card game that launched in March of 2021. Aoki approaches each new endeavor with the same sense of dedication he’s put into his past achievements, including his critically-acclaimed 2019 memoir BLUE: The Color of Noise and THE AOKI FOUNDATION, which Aoki founded in 2012 to support organizations in brain science and its research. In whatever space he enters, Aoki offers a community for those who need it most.
I love the idea of partnering up with someone with a completely different mindset on life,” he says. “Almost everything I do is some level of collaboration, whether it’s fashion, technology, music, art or culture. I love this idea that we can come together and put aside the things from our past that may have hardened or jaded us, and just be free. We can try something completely unhinged together. Whenever I’m struggling to find my voice, I go back to when I was a kid and remember how important it was to find a group of people who all believed in the same thing—and believed in it passionately.”
Boilerplate:
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, Success 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 Future albums, Aoki recently released HiROQUEST 2: Double Helix, the second in his HIROQUEST series, featuring collaborations with Paris Hilton, Galantis, ERNEST, Akon 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 documentary I’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. In whatever space Steve Aoki enters, the multi-hyphenate innovator continues to set trends and inspire creativity on a global level.