By Geoffrey Rowlands

Watching a French movie called La Haine set DJ Snake on the road to stardom. “There is a scene in the film where the character DJ Cutkiller has all his turntables and equipment set up. He opens his window and starts spinning music for the people on his block. It was after watching this that I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to play my own music for everyone on my block.”

Snake, real name William Grigahcine, was already heavily into electronic dance music. “Growing up in Paris meant I was surrounded by electro-dance. This kind of music is regarded as mainstream across Europe. But I had a wide musical taste. I learned to play a variety of instruments. Guitar and drums you might expect but I also played trumpet and tuba. I played in both the orchestra and marching band at school.”

Inspired by the scene in La Haine, Snake started throwing parties and DJing. Despite the growing popularity of these events, he joined the French military after leaving school.

“I got the nickname Snake on my second day of basic training. It sounded pretty cool so I kept it for my stage name.”

Having finished with the military, Snake attended university in Paris where he studied film and television. He also continued to DJ in his spare time.

“I was creating my own tracks by now and building a reputation. This led to opening for Snoop Dogg on his European tour. I was 18 at the time so it was a fantastic opportunity for a young dude like me.”

International success was not immediate. Snake worked for a movie marketing company while perfecting his DJ and production skills. His breakthrough came in 2009 when Snake was chosen to co-produce Pitbull and Akon’s track, Shut It Down.

“When I started producing for other artists, I tried to figure out the kind of sound they wanted. But I realised this wasn’t what I should be doing. I needed to develop my own DJ Snake sound and have artists ask me to produce for them because mine was the sound they wanted for their songs.”

Lady GaGa was one such artist. Snake earned a Grammy nomination in 2012 for the tracks he produced on her Born This Way album. He also worked on three songs for her 2013 album, ARTPOP. His other production and remix credits include songs by artists such as Kanye West, Aluna George and Katy Perry.

“My musical influences range from Queen to Notorious BIG so I create the kind of sounds which can appeal to artists from different backgrounds. I also don’t limit myself to any one particular style. I feel the difference between a regular producer and a great producer is having the willingness to evolve.”

Part of Snake’s personal evolution was releasing his own tracks. Last year saw his international debut with Bird Machine. It became one of the hottest songs on the dance music scene but did not gain significant mainstream chart success.

This was achieved with his latest single, Turn Down For What. A dance chart hit when released late last year, the song has become a mainstream smash so far peaking at number five on Billboard’s Hot 100.

“I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Lil Jon. I’d created the beat and originally used a vocal sample by Redman which I hoped Jon would cover. He was instantly down with the beat but wanted to create his own vocal. He came up with the Turn Down For What lyric and what he did with the track absolutely blew my mind.”

Although he still has far to travel in his own career, Snake is already looking to help others on their path to fame.

“What I really want to do is find a young, unknown artist and make them a star. It doesn’t matter if it’s a DJ /producer, singer or musician. People like Diplo, Pitbull and others helped me along the way. I’d love to do the same for some deserving and talented person.”

 

in brief

Lady GaGa

Lady GaGa has become the first female artist to receive a Diamond Award from the Recording Industry Association of America.

The honour was bestowed upon her during GaGa’s recent concert at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC. It was given to recognise her single, Bad Romance, surpassing the 10mn mark in song sales and digital streams.

The Bad Romance video has proved even more popular. It won seven MTV Video Music Awards plus the Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video and is now approaching 585mn views on YouTube.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the video, it is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I

 

Sia Furler

Sia Furler has experienced massive international chart success as the featured vocalist on songs by David Guetta and Flo Rida. But the Adelaide-born singer / songwriter had never bettered the number 17 spot in her native Australia with any of her own singles.

This has now changed thanks to the enormous success Sia is enjoying with Chandelier. The lead single from her forthcoming sixth studio album, 1000 Forms of Fear, the song’s popularity has been boosted by an official promo which Glee  star Naya Rivera described as ‘the best video ever.’

Sia does not appear in the video. It consists entirely of dance choreography performed by 11-year-old “Dance Moms” star Maddie Ziegler. Despite this seemingly run-of-the-mill scenario, the video attracted nearly 6mn YouTube views inside a week and has now been watched over 11mn times. It is posted at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vjPBrBU-TM

 

Jillian Banks

Jillian Banks has been making quite a name for herself over the last year or so. Known simply as BANKS, the Los Angeles-born singer /songwriter was an MTV Brand New nominee and featured in the BBC’s Sound of 2014 poll.

She performs an unusual style of music which has been described as alternative R&B. Her debut album, Goddess, is scheduled for release in September. Among the tracks are all the songs previously issued on her two EPs, Fall Over and London.

These, along with numerous other songs, remixes and live performances, can be heard at (no www.) soundcloud.com/banksbanksbanks. Some of the postings are offered for free download.

 

Lupe Fiasco

Rapper Lupe Fiasco is quite literally a man on a mission. The title of Lupe’s latest single, Mission is not just his new song. It represents an empowerment to those people facing cancer, a reverence for cancer sufferers and a remembrance of those who have succumbed to the disease.

The 90-second intro features cancer survivors telling their stories. It is followed by Lupe’s upliftingly positive lyrics which were written from personal experience.

“We should all be on a mission to battle cancer,” Lupe remarked. “I’ve joined the Stand Up to Cancer movement as a celebrity ambassador. SU2C aims to raise funds to increase the pace of cancer research. I’m planning various collaborations with SU2C which are linked to Mission. We’ll have details in the coming weeks.”

There is no video for Mission as yet but an audio posting is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R-_sxP5kCk.

Although Mission is the first official single from his forthcoming fifth studio album, Tetsuo & Youth, Lupe released his collaboration with Ed Sheeran on Old School Love late last year. The video for this song is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVnu7zi0daY