READ: The HUGEL Hï Ibiza Interview

In this interview, HUGEL discusses his musical upbringing in Marseille, his first encounter with decks, his love of Miami, and the one thing everyone got wrong about him at first.

HUGEL’s Make The Girls Dance residency ran every Thursday at Hï Ibiza this season, and he played a special one-off show at a pizza place in Ibiza.

This interview is part of our Road To Now series, where we ask our world-class resident DJs to give the definitive account of the artistic journey that brought them to a residency at the #1 Club in the World. The video version of this interview is out now.

I grew up in Marseille, in the south of France, which is one of the oldest cities in Europe and probably one of the biggest ports in Europe. So the culture has been mixed with a lot of different things. We had, like, you know, the Italians, the Corsicans, the Arabs, the Spanish, the Egyptians, the Comorians. So we have a lot of different cultures. I grew up there being the minority by the way I look. It was really rich, culturally. That's definitely something that inspired my music.

It’s mainly rap and hip-hop, because it's a very poor city. I believe that in every city where they have a lot of hoods and stuff like that hip-hop and rap music has always been the main one. But we also had a big dance culture, especially back in the days when I started. A lot of house parties and electronic music parties were happening in the city. I remember seeing Carl Cox for the first time when I was 16 years old in a club called Le Bazar in Marseilles. That was the first time that I'd heard techno and I was like, damn, what is this music? I remember he was playing only records that I'd never heard and I couldn't stop dancing. I was just hypnotised. I was like, damn, this is electronic music. You get hypnotised without knowing any records and the feeling was amazing. So I feel like we had, like a mixed culture between hip-hop and electronic, but mainly hip- hop and rap.

Probably me in the baby seat at the back of the car of my mum, and she's going crazy with, um... “Do you remember?” … September by Earth, Wind and Fire. I developed passion for music in the belly of my mum because she’s a big, big fan of music, mainly black music. I grew up with funk, disco, soul, jazz. She has a huge vinyl collection. And I feel like, since I was a kid, I'd always, you know, been surrounded by music and I never really liked school or anything like that. Even at a very young age, at six years old, I remember asking my mum, like who invented that system where we have to wake up in the morning and it's painful? The music was always the thing that was bringing me happiness and joy in life.

The first time that I was thinking about that DJ thing, it was when I went for the first time to Saint-Tropez. Saint-Tropez is, like, one hour from Marseille. So that's basically, for us, the first place where we go when we want to experience a bit of, you know, partying with international people. So when I was 14, I was able to go to Saint-Tropez in this legendary beach that was called La Voile Rouge. It was the first time I saw a DJ playing some house music and all those girls dancing on the tables and these kind of like rich guys that were older than the girls in their shirts like dancing like this, and I was like, damn, what the fuck is that? And at that time, the DJs were not superstars. It was more the guy in the corner that was playing music but I was fascinated by it. These guys are playing music and those people go crazy. That's super cool. So I would say that's the first time that I thought about that DJ thing.

The very first music I made was when I was 12 years old on a software called eJay, on the family computer. We had one big computer for everybody because my stepfather was working with it. So we were allowed to use it when he was not using it. I got this eJay software and that's how I started to do my first beats.

The first time that I tried decks was totally by accident. I was 16 years old and a friend of mine was asking me if I wanted to go with him to a shop called Cash Express, which was a secondhand shop that was selling all sorts of equipment already used for a cheap price. He was like, I want to go to Cash Express. Do you want to come with me? I want to try some DJ equipment. And I was like, why not? I have nothing to do. I'll go with you. I remember we entered the shop and the shop had this DJ booth with this Gemini. The brand was Gemini equipment. We were allowed to try it and I had no idea how it worked or anything. So I remember arriving and seeing all the lights with these buttons. I was listening to a lot of rap, so I had this CD of 50 Cent or something like that and I put it in and I was just playing with the FX. I was like, fuck, this shit is lit! That's amazing. And my friend had good money, I mean, his parents had money. So he bought the equipment that day. Let me tell you, that guy half an hour later became my best friend. I was non-stop with him, training on his equipment and stuff. So that's the first time that I touched decks.

The very first time that I played a proper DJ set I was underage. I was 17 years old and I played in Le Metal Café in Marseille. That doesn't exist anymore. It was famous for after parties and all that. Some students were organising a show there for the university and I was connecting with them on MSN back in the day, the messaging thing. The guy was like, “Cool, you can come. You bring your equipment. We pay you the whole night, 30 euros.” And I'm like, "Mum, I have a contract. I'm playing this DJ set in Metal Café, 30 euro!". And that's my very, very first DJ set at 17 years old.

I've been a resident DJ for 10 years in the South of France. I've been playing every type of music that exists. Like, everything you can hear basically in a club I've played it. The first thing that I've learnt is patience. That's for sure. Because I was playing six, seven hours a night. Four nights a week. I've learned how to build a set from let's say 11 or midnight until six in the morning, because you don't play the same music the whole night.

My friend Amine Edge from Amine Edge & DANCE, he told me one day; the best way to make it is to be unique. To be yourself, and not try to copy anybody and just try to find your own sound and your own image and personality. And when I did this, things got bigger for sure.

I feel like Miami has always affected my sound. Since I saw Scarface when I was 12 or 13, since I played GTA Vice City, I was like, okay, one day I need to move to Miami. I always felt like this city was calling me, you know? When I did and I arrived there with all the Latinas and all of that, I was like, okay, my sound is really connecting with the people here. That's the first place where my music connected in the United States. And I believe that Miami is very influential in terms of the rave scene.

"Morenita" is a special song for me. I got swallowed up a little bit by the radio industry and all that. It was a lot of pressure because you were always like dependent on the radio. Like, oh, are they going to play my new song? I'm not getting a hit because I was in the commercial DJ thing. And I was like, fuck, I always need the radio to exist. But I didn't start that for that, right? So I just started to make music for me, as a therapy. I used to live in Ibiza for two years: 2018 and 2019. In 2020 I was in Portugal. I wanted to make Balearic music. Something that reminded me of my time on the island. So I do the "Morenita" song and I don't even plan to release it. I sent it to a couple of labels and everyone turned it down. One label, Mark Brown at Cr2 Records in the UK said, "Bro, I see the vision because I'm in this game for like more than 20 or something. And I remember this type of sound back in the days. That was called Latin house. I feel like it's very refreshing that you do this right now". I was like, well, finally someone who sees the vision. When I was a resident DJ I used to play a lot of records like that. We used to drive to Barcelona because it was just four hours from Marseille. And we were buying the vinyls that were like more Latin house and all that shit. So I was, like, finally someone who sees what I'm trying to do.

Then we released the song and got number one on Beatport. Suddenly FISHER was hitting me on Instagram and playing the track, and Diplo the same and John Summit and Vintage Culture and everybody. And I'm like, fuck, so this is what happens when I do the music I want to do. Let's just keep going! And then suddenly Insomniac in America is reaching out to my management. They asked me to go to sign with them and start to play shows in the US. So I do my visa, I go there and I arrive in America. They're like, yeah, this is the guy who invented Latin house. In my head I'm like, invented what? What do you mean? [Laughs]. And I realised that like all those Latin house records we had back in the days, like when I was a resident DJ, they never travelled to the US. They never did because there was no internet the same. So for the Americans, they were like, you invented Latin house. I was like, if you say so, I'm the inventor of Latin house, baby, let's go! [Laughs]. And then I started to play festivals, clubs, selling out stuff because the Latin community in the US is massive and they were coming to every show, supporting and showing love and it just got bigger and bigger. So I did another one and another one and another and then, yeah, that's it basically. So "Morenita" is a big record for me.

The achievement in my career that I'm most proud of is that I retired my entire family. That's what I'm the most proud of out of everything I did.