Audio By Carbonatix
Fedde Le Grande is a busy man. When he’s not collaborating with international music icons or wrapping up his latest record, he’s touring the world, jetting from his home in the Netherlands to remote locales.
To say his 2006 single — the homage to the mecca of techno called “Put Your Hands Up for Detroit” — put Fedde on the map is a gross understatement. Across the pond, it won him an award for the number one summer anthem of Ibiza and reached number one on the UK charts. He also picked up an MTV Video Music Award in Australia. Stateside, he took three categories in the International Dance Awards at the 2007 WMC.
His success wasn’t instantaneous, though. Le Grand spent years cutting his teeth as a DJ and, in order to get his music out, eventually started a label with friend and partner Funkerman. “The funny thing is, at the time nobody really liked my music,” Le Grand recalls. “That’s why we started the label.”
But he wasn’t content with grabbing the electro world by the scruff of the neck; he has forayed into other genres as well. Recently, he’s had the opportunity to work with Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am. and the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna. The latter not only used “Put Your Hands Up for Detroit” for her tour, but also asked Le Grand to remix her song “Give It 2 Me.”
While house music will always be his main thing, Le Grande says fans will get to discover some of his other tastes on his latest record, Scared of Me. “There’s music on the album I just finished that would probably be defined more as pop music,” he says. “I wanted to do a real party album, not a compilation of my latest house tracks.”
This year’s WMC offers fans multiple chances to see him live. He’ll be kicking off Wednesday night with a party he’s presenting at SET called Flamingo Nights (named for his label), which will also feature Funkerman, Tocadisco, and Patric La Funk. He’ll be at Space for Toolroom Knights on Thursday, and of course, he’s set to perform at Ultra on Saturday, all of which promise to be memorable.
“I’m very excited to do my own night. But I did Ultra last year and it was one of my favorite gigs of the year, so I’m really looking forward to that too,” Le Grand says. “And it’s nice for me to be able to do Toolroom Knights, because I can kind of go back to where I started. I started a lot more underground than I probably am for a lot of people now.”
