Baauer

The man responsible for sending the world into a Harlem Shake dance craze, Baauer's infectious electro beats collide with a mix of hip hop, house, techno and all manner of bizarre sounds and samples. Born in Philadelphia but raised in Germany and England before returning to live in New York, Harry Bauer Rodrigues began DJ-ing as a 14-year-old after hearing Basement Jaxx and Ministry of Sound albums and started creating house tracks in his bedroom. His unsuccessful demos were given a new lease of life, however, when he incorporated woozy sub-bass lines from Southern hip hop, "trap" and "crunk" tracks. His strutting floor filler Dum Dum earned a deal with Diplo's label Mad Decent, and when Harlem Shake was initially released as a free download in 2011, it slowly became a club favourite. Things changed when the track was re-released in 2013 and fans started posting videos of themselves dancing along. Soon the parody videos became a huge internet theme with millions of hits on YouTube and when Billboard changed their chart rules to include internet views, it shot to Number 1 in the US for five consecutive weeks and became one of the biggest sensations of the year. Baauer went on to work with Jay-Z's producer Just Blaze on the track Higher and remixed for AlunaGeorge, Disclosure and The Prodigy, but faced a lengthy legal battle to claim royalties from the Harlem Shake because of its unlicensed use of samples from Hector Delgado and rapper Jason Musson.