Bio : Steve Aoki
Steve Aoki is many things—Grammy-nominated music producer, artist, fashion designer, entrepreneur, and tech visionary—but one key thing 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 his work, offering shared spaces and connections for like-minded fans and fellow artists. Although he has explored numerous genres and styles of music, the spirit of this connection lies in his love of dance music.
Paragon, Aoki’s ninth studio album, is a testament to his global influence. It expands the story of 2022’s HIROQUEST: Genesis and 2023’s HIROQUEST 2: Double Helix and takes a new sonic direction that embraces the past and future of dance. The 18 tracks, created in Aoki’s Las Vegas studio and on the road as he toured Australia, Europe, Africa, South America and more over the past year, showcase collaborations with established and up-and-coming artists from around the world. It's a musical journey that shifts between different styles of global dance music, including techno, EDM, Afrobeat and Amapiano, while retaining Aoki’s signature pop sensibility.
“This album represents the core of my community and culture,” Aoki says. “My environment informs Everything I make, and I’ve been on tour for the past year, completely focused on my live show. These songs were born on the road and born with the crowd. Because of that, it’s the most dance-centered collection of songs I’ve ever made. It’s the sort of music that makes you move and dance and feel.”
The album’s standout single “Heavenly Hell,” which has become a center-point of Aoki’s live show, features NE-YO. Aoki began writing the song several years ago, allowing the anthemic track to evolve in a way that would be fresh without being locked into a specific trend. On “Get Lower,” Aoki reunited with Lil Jon to reimagine the rapper’s 2002 hit “Get Low” with a dynamic club sensibility. Paragon also emphasizes musical discovery, which is important to Aoki as an artist and owner of the trendsetting Dim Mak record label. “3 Days” showcases Los Angeles rapper Kalan.FrFr’s signature west coast style, while “Voices in My Head” builds an atmospheric club number and features Dutch vocalist Teddy Bee. “Drive,” which features Swedish singer KIDDO, is more pop-heavy, layering upbeat, undeniable hooks. The album also draws on South Africa as an influence, tapping Moonchild Sanelly for buoyant dance number “Mad” and Major League DJz for pulsating track “Visa.” As a whole, the album is a skillful balance of nostalgia and prescience.
“I like to go back to my roots and revisit the sounds of the past,” Aoki says. “But I also wanted to modernize what’s come before and to look forward. It’s important as an artist to stay current and understand where the musical landscape is without losing touch with where I’ve been. I’m an A&R guy at heart, so I love finding and discovering new artists. To me, it's really important to be early and to elevate artists who might not have the power to do it themselves.” Aoki's commitment to musical discovery is a testament to his dedication to the industry and his role as an A&R.
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 13.7 million monthly listeners on Spotify, with a 53 million average monthly reach across all his platforms. He’s released three Platinum singles and 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, his dual HIROQUEST albums opened the door to a new narrative adventure, which continues with Paragon.
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 recently, he’s averaged over 200 tour dates per year. 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 bring the spirit of connection and discovery to everything he does.
Simultaneously, Aoki has continued expanding in niche spaces in tech, fashion and gaming worlds. 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. 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, his 2023 book HIROQUEST: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL, a collaboration with Eisner Award winning writer Jim Krueger, and THE AOKI FOUNDATION, which Aoki founded in 2012 to support organizations in brain science and its research.
With Paragon, as well as everything else he does, Aoki emphasizes living deliberately and imbuing each endeavor with complete motivation and enthusiasm. He’s always searching for new interests and fresh ideas, as evidenced by the impressive variety of sounds incorporated into Paragon. He does each thing with purpose and intention, always knowing that life is too short not to focus on what really matters.
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.