Carl Cox At Ultra 2018

Carl Cox At Ultra 2018

Photo: Courtesy of Ultra Music Festival

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Ultra Music Festival 2018: 7 DJs Who Lit Up Miami

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Find out whose builds peaked the highest and whose drops hit the hardest at this weekend's 20th anniversary installment of Ultra Music Festival
Nate Hertweck & Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Mar 26, 2018 - 5:30 pm

For its 20th anniversary, Ultra Music Festival pulled out all the stops. Whether you were in the crowd in Miami or watching the festival's fantastic live stream, the only thing more incredible than the energy this year was the lineup. From legends like Carl Cox to hometown favorites like GTA to a surprise appearance from a reunited Swedish House Mafia, this year's Ultra will no doubt be remembered as one of the finest.

Relive The Turn-Up At Ultra's 20th Anniversary

As we all return home this Monday, head back to work and try to find our way back to reality, let's take a bleary-eyed look back at seven DJ sets from Ultra that stuck to the inside of our brains and beat hard on the walls of our hearts.

1. Afrojack

GRAMMY-winner Afrojack celebrated his 10th anniversary in the music industry last year, and continues to push the boundaries of the genre and move effortlessly between flavors of EDM, hip-hop, and pop with the crowd's enjoyment always top of mind. His blistering Ultra set showed the variety and power of his talents, and featured a special appearance from Australian vocalist/songwriter Vassy, who joined him onstage for a version of David Guetta & Showtek's "Bad" and the Afrojack/Vassy collab "Lost." Afrojack clearly brought his A-game because, as he told us backstage before his set, Ultra is one of the most important moments of the year for DJs.

"[Ultra] is like a very high-level playground for the DJs." — Afrojack

"It's not just a music festival, it's a music festival linked to the biggest gathering of music industry professionals," said Afrojack, "so everyone from the dance music industry all around the world that has any kind of success is here during this week. So that's what keeps it magic. That's what keeps the artists trying their best because they're basically like, 'yo if you f*** this up you're not getting booked this year.' so it's like a very high-level playground for the DJs." — Nate Hertweck

2. Carl Cox

Headlining the Megastructure stage named in his honor, legendary house and techno pioneer Carl Cox showed the assembled army of partygoers that 40-plus years in the business as one of dance music's greatest selectors have done nothing to slow him down. Playing to a crowd numbering well into the tens of thousands, Cox ripped through his bottomless collection of choice tracks and crowd favorites, even taking a subtle nod at the perpetual rumors that Daft Punk might be reuniting for a surprise appearance by dropping "Rollin' & Scratchin'" off the French duo's acclaimed 1997 debut album, Homework. — Brian Haack

3. Slushii

The last couple years have been crazy for Los Angeles-based DJ/producer Julian Scanlan, a.k.a. Slushii. He signed with Red Light Management in 2016 at age 18, released several singles over the next year before dropping a collab with Marshmello in March of last year and releasing his debut studio album, Out Of Light, last August. Slushii's Friday night return to Ultra's Worldwide stage for the second year in a row was a triumphant one, marking his arrival as a fresh, young talent with more than enough versatility to be here to stay. — N.H.

4. Nora En Pure

South African-Swiss DJ Nora En Pure made her first appearance at Ultra since 2015 when she closed Stage 7. This year, her daytime Saturday set on the Ultra Worldwide stage was filled with upbeat vibes and En Pure's signature flair for integrating compelling chord progressions into her deep house sound. The Johannesburg-born and Switzerland-raised DJ/producer was also spotlighted earlier in the week as part of Winter Music Conference's "A Conversation With" series. — N.H.

5. GTA

Miami-based genre-blending party leaders GTA (Matt Toth and Julio Mejia) took a quick pit stop on their 3 Night Stand U.S. tour to play their hometown's biggest dance festival. Taking the 9 p.m. Sunday night set on the Ultra Worldwide stage just before festival trap don RL Grime closed out the weekend, the duo worked their way seamlessly through the sounds of booming electro, hip-hop, future bass, and trap, blowing the party out for a nonstop rage fest. 

"We have so many people here that we grew up with that are going to be in the crowd, they come every year and support," commented Toth about the experience of playing their fourth Ultra Music Festival.  "It's also really cool being able to see all of our producer friends from Twitter and online, and putting a face to a name, and just being able to connect with everyone," added Mejia. — B.H.

6. Dubfire B2B Nicole Moudaber B2B Paco Osuna

Ultra might be most closely associated with its unprecedented ability to bring the world biggest DJs together in one festival, but it also maintains a healthy respect for the world of underground dance and electronic music. The RESISTANCE stages provide attendees with a wide swath of premiere underground DJ sets to make sure every musical itch can be scratched. This year, the Carl Cox Megastructure played host to a special back-to-back-to-back set with Iranian-American Dubfire (one half of GRAMMY-winning duo Deep Dish), Nigerian Nicole Moudaber, and Spanish Paco Osuna served as a one-two-three punch clinic in globe-trotting techno. –N.H.

7. Swedish House Mafia

While the pervasive rumors of a Daft Punk reunion at Ultra once again turned out not to be true (as always), the equally exciting rumors that progressive house supergroup Swedish House Mafia would be reuniting, surprisingly, did turn out to be true. As the weekend progressed, flyers and posters hinting at the GRAMMY-nominated group's return began to pop up in the streets of Miami, and several sharp-eared Reddit users who were monitoring the festival's official live stream broadcasts began to note that none of the separate members of SHM had played a single Swedish House Mafia track during their mainstage sets. By the time it was separately noted that Sebastian Ingrosso and Axwell had teased the SHM logo as part of their on-screen visuals during their Friday night headlining set, the reunion was all but confirmed. When Ingrosso, Axwell, and Steve Angello hit the stage on Sunday night and reintroduced themselves as Swedish House Mafia, there wasn't a free spot left to stand at the mainstage, and more than a few tears of joy were shed among the capacity crowd. — B.H.

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The Recording Academy @ ULTRA 2018

Photos: WireImage.com

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Ultra, Miami Music Week With David Guetta, Tiësto, MusiCares & More

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The dance music community gathered in Miami for the year's biggest shows, parties, panels and premieres —here is your all-access pass
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Mar 26, 2018 - 4:33 pm

Monday, March 26

  • Each year, the dance music artists, professionals, and enthusiasts from the whole world over make the pilgrimage to Miami Music Week. This year, we stopped by some of the week's hottest parties and most exclusive events to rub elbows with the world's finest DJs, including up-and-comers like Lost Frequencies, worldwide sensations such as Above & Beyond and genre pioneers like David Guetta.

    Go Inside Miami Music Week's Hottest Parties

  • As we all return home this Monday, head back to work and try to find our way back to reality, take a bleary-eyed look back at seven DJ sets from Ultra that stuck to the inside of our brains and beat hard on the walls of our hearts.

Sunday, March 25

  • Just before his sunset set at Ultra, we caught up with Dutch DJ/producer Tiësto to discuss "Boom" with Gucci Mane, music's power to heal and the motto that has informed his successful 20-plus-year career. Check out our exclusive chat with the GRAMMY winner.

  • Weren't in Miami this week? Live vicariously through our roundup of the hottest industry mixers, daytime beach bashes and exclusive afterparties from Miami Music Week. 

Saturday, March 24

  • For artists, crew members and music fans alike, there are few things more important than protecing your hearing. MusiCares, the Recording Academy's health and human services charity, was on the ground in Miami, providing hearing protection for artists and crew. Get the lowdown on what some of the clients had to say with our full report.

    MusiCares hearing clinic backstage at Ultra
  • On Thursday, David Guetta and Sia revealed their latest collaboration,"Flames." Just a day later, we sat down for an exclusive with Guetta for the full story on their fiery new single, his chemistry with Sia and how he's prepping for his headling set at Ultra.
     
    David Guetta photographed in 2018

Friday, March 23

  • Deep house DJ Nora En Pure's exotic moniker reflects her work: mysterious, unique and authentic. She capped off the resurgence of Winter Music Conference on March 22 with an intimate conversation covering her creative process, thoughts on the current state of dance music, and her deepest inspirations and dreams.

  • Despite the huge number of notable music documentaries captivating the stories behind the artists, albums, and movements we love, dance music has had disproportionately fewer shining moments on the silver screen, especially considering the genre's massive and ever-growing popularity and influence. Now, a new film changes all that — What We Started premiered at Miami Music Week on Mach. 22. Learn about the film with our report from the premiere.

Thursday, March 22

From South Beach to Wynwood, to Downtown and back, Miami is pulsing with the world's biggest DJs and most passionate dance music fans this week. The reason? There are several. Ultra Music Festival, Miami Music Week, and Winter Music Conference all coincide, making Miami the place to for all things dance music.

Inside Miami Music Week with top DJs

Whether you on the scene and unable to be everywhere at once, or you can't quite make it South Florida, the Recording Academy has you covered. We'll be bringing you inside access to all the hottest performances, parties and panels from on the ground in Miami.

Ultra Music Festival

Ultra Music Festival returns to its picturesque downtown Miami home this year for the festival's 20th-anniversary edition. While the annual lineup is always solid, 2018's docket is particularly strong with headlining sets on the way from a collection of GRAMMY winners and nominees including Afrojack, the Chainsmokers, David Guetta, DJ Snake, Kaskade, Steve Aoki, Tiësto, and many more.

Arcadia The Spider stage (by Arcadia Spectacular) at Ultra 2017
Photo courtesy Arcadia Spectacular

To mix things up at Ultra, the RESISTANCE Stages return with an incredible mix of underground dance music. This year the Carl Cox Megastructure, hosted as always by legendary DJ Carl Cox himself, features a stacked string of performances by Dubfire, Nicole Moudaber, and Paco Osuna. Meanwhile, the unforgettable Arcadia The Spider stage installation is back, and will will be led by dark techno visionary and Drumcode label boss Adam Beyer, along with sets from J.E.S.u.S. (Jackmaster, Eats Everything, Skream, and Seth Troxler) and Better Lost Than Stupid (Davide Squillace, Matthias Tanzman, and Martin Buttrich). This diverse mix of headliners and RESISTANCE stage acts ensure there will be something for everyone at this year's sold-out Ultra.

Miami Music Week

Miami Music Week coincides with Ultra each year, and brings countless parties and club shows to South Beach, making sure industry players and fans alike have no shortage of music to enjoy. We'll be tracking some of the wildest and most exclusive parties and hippest premieres throughout the week.

Winter Music Conference

Winter Music Conference is also enjoying a vital last-minute resurgence in 2018. After a long history of unofficially overlapping to make Miami the place to be in late March, Ultra and Winter Music Conference are now finally under the same roof, with Ultra's announcement earlier this week that it had officially acquired WMC. With these two powerhouses now in step to provide more programming and entertainment, the sky is the limit. We'll be following some of the can't-miss programs from WMC, bringing you the inside scoop on what's what in today's thriving dance music industry.

Many of the world's DJs who make the pilgrimage to Miami feel that Ultra and Miami Music Week mark the start of the New Year for dance music, an opportunity to show off the new stage sets they've been working on through the winter. Make sure you check back at GRAMMY.com all this weekend to see what surprises are in store.

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Tiësto photographed in 2018

Tiësto

Photo: Steven Lawton/Getty Images

Feature

Exclusive: Tiësto On Ultra, Working With Gucci Mane & The "Magic Hour"

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Just before his sunset set at Ultra, we caught up with the GRAMMY-winning DJ/producer to discuss "Boom" with Gucci Mane, music's power to heal and why it's good to be Tiësto
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Mar 25, 2018 - 4:47 pm

One of the greatest DJs to come out of the Netherlands, Tiësto is at the point in his career where he can pick and choose exactly when he wants to play during the biggest dance music festivals in the world. His choice for this year's 20th-anniversary installment of Ultra Music Festival? Sunset on Saturday night, of course. 

"I think it's the magic hour. I love it when the sun goes down — you get into the darkness of the night and you have the best of both worlds you play a day party and a night party at the same time," Tiësto told us backstage at the festival just before his set. "The colors in the air are always so beautiful. I used to always close Ultra Fest on Friday night, and then the first time they said, 'Let's try something different,' I played the sunset set and since then I've played it every year because I really love it."

In fact, in the illustrious two decades of Ultra's history, the superstar DJ/producer has only missed the festival once. According to Tiësto, the reasons are clear why he and his peers make the pilgrimage year after year to Miami. 

"Here in Miami, the dance music family comes together every year. You have to be here," he says. "It's a must. You see all your old friends. You see new DJs. You hear new sounds. You see new trends. … Miami is a beautiful place to be."

This year, Tiësto mixed things up by kicking off Miami Music Week with a secret show at an exclusive Uber party on March 22 for just 300 fans, a rare occurrence for one of the world's biggest DJs. The "Sweet Nothing" remixer told us how thrilled he was to present something special this year when we were interrupted by a voice passing by in the hallway.

"I heard Tiësto didn't prepare his set," Afrojack boomed from the other side of the pressroom curtain, feigning his friend wasn't in earshot. The joke interrupted our interview momentarily before the two exchanged gregarious "hellos."

"He's a good friend. He's a good guy." Tiësto says, smiling warmly. 

Before long, you get the sense the only thing more important than music to Tiësto is people. Specifically, connecting with his fans, supporting his peers, entertaining people, and serving as a positive influence to all those who have followed the trail he's blazed.

"I always say that my biggest achievement in my life is that I inspired other people," he says. "Guys like [Martin] Garrix and all the other young DJs, they have a career because they saw me perform. That's just the best feeling you can have." 

In the recent documentary What We Started, which premiered during Miami Music Week, Garrix credits Tiësto's 2004 Summer Olympics performance as igniting the spark in him to become a DJ and bring joy to audiences through his own music. Tiësto's message of positivity and hope has touched countless lives at this point in his 20-plus-year career. When asked about his impact on the landscape of dance music, the superstar is quick to shift the focus.

"When people are not healthy and they listen to my music and it gives them positive energy and they get better," he says. "I have cancer survivors who listen to my music daily and it gives them positive energy. I think that's the beauty about music and that's why I'm doing this."

All these years into building his legacy, Tiësto is still finding new ways to bring his fans pleasure. Earlier this year, his latest collaboration with rapper Gucci Mane on the track "Boom" showed that the crossover appeal between dance and hip-hop is only beginning, with Gucci's smooth verses staccato hook chopping on the beat right before the drop.

"I liked how it was originally an instrumental, and it was doing very well in the clubs and was going viral everywhere, and then Gucci Mane gave it another life with his vocal on top. It gives something extra," Tiësto says. "It's just a cool thing that started in the clubs and built and built, and with a famous rapper like him on it, it goes to another level."

Tiësto is accustomed to taking tracks to another level. 

His 2014 driving remix of John Legend's soulful modern classic "All Of Me" earned him Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical at the 57th GRAMMY Awards. As inventive as Tiësto's treatment of the love ballad was, transforming it into a dance-floor anthem, what he did with the actual GRAMMY Award he received for his efforts was just as creative.

"After I won the GRAMMY I had it traveling around for a year, a bit like the Stanley Cup idea, because a lot of people were involved in me winning the GRAMMY, supporting me my whole life," he says. "So, I sent it to my mom first and it was there for a couple weeks, and to all my friends and all the people at the studio. ... After a year it came back to my place and it's in New York standing there on a nice desk."

All of his success aside, the 49-year-old seems immune to the pressures of creating more hits, opting to go with what feels natural in music and in life. 

"I just go with the flow, live in the present. I take everything one step at a time. I really enjoy my life, I enjoy what I do."

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Martin Garrix, 2017

Martin Garrix

Tim Mosenfleder/Getty Images

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Miami Music Week 2018: Inside The 'What We Started' Premiere

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The story of how two seemingly polar opposite DJs became threads in the same rich tapestry of dance music history
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Mar 23, 2018 - 12:17 pm

Despite the huge number of notable music documentaries captivating the stories behind the artists, albums, and movements we love, dance music has had disproportionately fewer shining moments on the silver screen, especially considering the genre's massive and ever-growing popularity and influence. Now, a new film changes all that — What We Started premiered at Miami Music Week on March 22 and is in theaters now. It delivers what may be the first truly great modern film about the makings of the modern DJ.

What We Started walks through the history of dance music, pinning its narrative to the star trails of two of the scenes biggest, yet seemingly most dissimilar, stars: 55-year-old underground acid house pioneer Carl Cox and 21-year-old main stage prodigy Martin Garrix. While their backgrounds are different — with Cox growing up in the in the U.K. in the 1970s without support for his DJ dreams from his father, and Garrix being supported from a very young age by his parents — the film illuminates the commonality between the two and the thread binding the movement: the love of music.

Featuring first-hand testimonies from the front lines of the dance music revolution from David Guetta, Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold, Tiësto, Afrojack, Moby, and many more, the film covers a lot of ground in 90 minutes. Directors Bert Marcus and Cyrus Saidi weave crucial snapshots of the formation and evolution of the dance scene from its disco origins to the rise and fall of underground rave culture, to the debate between the merits of the authentic craft of spinning vinyl versus the modern notion of "press play: DJs. It also calls out watershed moments such as Tiësto's performance at the 2004 Summer Olympics or Oakenfold's unprecedented stadium tour with U2, shining a light on the shift they created in the scene's momentum.

In the end, What We Started manages to provide an appropriate introduction to newcomers of the genre and a heartfelt, honest look back for those who were there for the real thing. 

"I feel like everybody could watch this movie, not just house music and electronic music fans, but anybody interested in the genre, in the movement," says Garrix. "This movie represents us. It represents what we stand for. It represents the good energy, the positive vibes."

The premiere was followed by an in-depth discussion with the directors and the film’s two main stars, and the room was packed with some of dance music's biggest names and most enthusiastic supporters. Cox was quick to laud Marcus and Saidi's efforts for speaking to the core of the film's subject matter.

"Seeing ourselves on screen, our story, our lives," says Cox. "It made me cry your movie exudes so many emotions about our scene. Not many people know that or feel that about what's happening with our music culture. It really does touch your heart… That's what music's about. It pushes your emotional buttons … it's our lives. It's what we're here for."

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Cedric Gervais

Cedric Gervais

Photo: Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images

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Cedric Gervais On Ultra Miami, "One Night" & House Music

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The GRAMMY-winning producer/DJ talks about the rich diversity of Miami's music culture and discusses why he's going back to his house music roots
Nate Hertweck
GRAMMYs
Jul 2, 2018 - 5:28 pm

Ultra Music Festival in Miami is one of the hottest tickets in the dance music world, and GRAMMY winner Cedric Gervais has been there from the beginning.

Cedric Gervais Talks Ultra Miami & "One Night"

We sat down with the French-born, Miami-bred producer/DJ backstage at this year's Ultra to discuss how the rich culture and history of Miami has created a supportive environment for dance music, and how his latest work, including the single "One Night," demonstrates a return to his love for house music.

Go 'On Location' In Miami With Amara La Negra, Trina & More