Multi-platinum selling DJ redefines the boundaries of pop music as he launches one of his most personal releases yet
FROM remixing the world's biggest pop stars to taking to the main stages at top festivals, R3HAB has spent the last decade redefining the boundaries of dance music.
With reworks for the likes of Rihanna, Drake, Taylor Swift, and Calvin Harris under his belt, the multi-platinum selling Dutch Moroccan DJ and producer has become synonymous with transforming chart toppers into dancefloor weapons, always with his signature balance of emotion and euphoria.
Advertisement
2
R3HAB has redefined the boundaries of dance music
Credit: CYB3RPVNK
R3HAB turns the page this summer with one of his most personal releases yet, All My Life.
Out now on Polydor/Universal, the tune trades the peak time punch for something more introspective and cinematic.
Written during a songwriting camp in Thailand, the track is a deep house journey laced with soft piano, shimmering synths and a soaring vocal.
'All My Life means a lot to me,' R3HAB tells us. 'The lyric 'Parachute when I free fall' came from a moment of complete surrender… that feeling when you let go, drift into the unknown and somehow feel safe in it.'
Advertisement
It's a reminder of the power of dance music to lift us out of ourselves and that's exactly what R3HAB's exclusive playlist for The Night Bazaar delivers.
Handpicked by the man himself, these ten tracks map out the energy and emotion that have fuelled his global journey and inspired his music, from the iconic remixes that made his name to his forward-thinking sound of today.
With tracks from The Prodigy, Bodyrox, Avicii, Underworld and more, whether you're on the dancefloor or chasing your own version of escape, R3HAB's selection is the perfect soundtrack to let go, live fully and, as he puts it, 'forget about everything else for a while.'
2
He has now released one of his most personal tracks yet
Credit: CYB3RPVNK
Advertisement
Most read in Showbiz
Exclusive
This one hit deep. I remember seeing the music video as a little kid - black and white, raw, chaotic, magical. The breakdancing, the attitude, the sheer energy of the track. It didn't sound like anything else. It was fast, aggressive and rebellious but so danceable. It gave me chills back then - and honestly, it still does. "You're no good for me"... the way that vocal cuts through? Timeless.
"Take your brain to another dimension..." This wasn't just a song - it was a full-blown trip. The vocals, the dubby textures, the dynamic shifts, it was unlike anything I'd ever heard. It felt like getting abducted into another world where every sound hit a different nerve. There's something truly spiritual about how it all comes together. As a kid, it was one of the first records that made me realise music could be cinematic, psychedelic, and explosive all at once.
Advertisement
I first heard this in a nightclub and thought, what the hell is that sound? It was sleek, sexy, futuristic - like techno and electro had a child and raised it in a neon-lit bunker. The production was so ahead of its time. Those stabbing synths, the groove, the attitude - you could feel it in your spine. It was one of those records that made me stop dancing just to listen closer and figure out how the hell someone even made that.
Pure genius. The sidechain compression, the gritty robotic vocals, the hypnotic repetition - it was the blueprint for an entire era of electro-house. It's one of those rare tracks that sounds just as fresh today as it did back then. Play it in any club and watch the floor erupt. I always expected how clean and punchy the mix was. Even now, it's hard to match the raw power this track delivers.
Advertisement
What a story this record tells. The tension, the poetic vocals, the way it just slowly builds like you're climbing some emotional mountain. It's more than a track - it's a cinematic journey. When that iconic drop finally hits, you feel like your soul lifts out of your body. "I can't get no sleep..." became a global mantra. This is dance music with narrative, drama, and real feeling.
The Dirty Dutch sound. I remember this one hitting the clubs for the first time - it was like a punch in the face in the best way possible. Those screeching leads, the pounding rhythm, the sheer boldness of the sound. Chuckie was at the forefront of something new. The original and the remixes both hit - I even had the honor of remixing it myself, which was a huge proud moment. That groove was just undeniable.
Advertisement
You can't talk about dance music history without this one. "Drive boy, dog boy, dirty numb angel boy..." - that vocal delivery still echoes in my mind. It's haunting, euphoric, manic. The way it builds and evolves is masterful. Watching Trainspotting and hearing this track felt like discovering a portal into another emotional universe. A record that proves dance music can be just as emotive as it is physical.
A modern masterpiece. The melody, the vocal sample, the euphoric progression - it defined Progressive House for a generation. It was so catchy yet full of emotion. Avicii managed to take something vintage and flip it into a stadium anthem. You could feel the optimism and hope in it. "Oh, sometimes I get a good feeling..." That's not just a lyric. It's a state of mind this record puts you in.
Advertisement
This one just slaps. Absolute banger. One of my favorite peak-time records ever. Showtek brought that gritty, festival-ready energy that got people jumping out of their skin. The transitions, the drops, the build-ups - everything was explosive. These guys have always been legendary producers, and "Booyah" cemented that. A track made for massive crowds and big sound systems.
Read more on the Irish Sun
Now, this one? Revolutionary. The rhythmic innovation, the use of vocal chops as instruments, the percussive madness - it felt like the future. Afrojack's punch and Major Lazer's swagger - together, they created something completely genre-defying. The beats were tribal, electronic, and raw all at once. It broke the rules and set trends. Every producer after tried to recreate that magic.
Advertisement
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Irish Sun
21 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Rihanna stuns as she shows off baby bump in sexy black body suit at Paris Fashion Week
RIHANNA lets rip in a slashed black body suit as she supports A$AP Rocky at Paris Men's Fashion Week. 4 Rihanna was snapped in a slashed black body suit at Paris Men's Fashion Week Credit: Splash 4 The star, showing off her baby bump, was supporting partner A$AP Rocky's AWGE clothing Credit: Splash Last month, she posed in lingerie from her The Savage x Fenty mogul strutted into The Carlyle hotel on Monday while debuting her growing bump with a form-fitting outfit. Rihanna, who is already mom to sons RZA, 2, and Riot, 1, with her rapper partner A$AP Rocky, arrived at the famous READ MORE ON RIHANNA The A$AP Rocky confirmed the news, telling the Associated Press: "It feels amazing, you know. "It's time that we show the people what we was cooking up, and I'm glad everybody's happy for us, 'cause we definitely happy, you know'." The singer had sparked Most read in Celebrity At a Fenty Beauty event in Days later, she wore an Rihanna reveals she's pregnant and expecting third child with partner A$AP Rocky at Met Gala In March, she wore a 4 Pop star Rhi is pregnant with the couple's third child Credit: Splash 4 Rihanna and A$AP Rocky seen making a stylish exit from the L'Arc nightclub in Paris Credit: Splash
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Irish designer Jonathan Anderson showcases new collection for Dior at Paris Fashion Week
Irish designer Jonathan Anderson proposed some new ideas for menswear as he ushered in a new era for Dior at Paris Fashion Week during the spring/summer 2026 menswear shows on Friday. The designer's debut offering for the storied French fashion house was a collision between an 18th-century dandy and a modern man. The collection contained some of Anderson's design hallmarks: he riffed on historical dress, preppiness, and sportswear, while paying homage to the Dior codes. The first model emerged in a tailored blazer in Donegal tweed and oversized cargo shorts, with ruffles protruding from behind. The 'Bar' jacket, as it is known, is a Dior signature. This was Anderson's take. The look was accessorised with a cravat, stripey socks, and fisherman sandals. Rocky and Rihanna arrive for the Dior menswear show. Picture: Marc Piasecki In this collection, Victoriana meets sportswear; military-inspired jackets are thrown over denim shirts; oversized Bermuda shorts have the pomp and ceremony of the 18th-century French court, without feeling like costume. The 40-year-old designer has a penchant for refracting historical dress through a modern lens. If anyone could resurrect the cravat, or even the tie, perhaps it is Anderson, who pushes men to think differently about the parameters of their wardrobes. A skilled interpreter of dress codes, Anderson identified properness and twisted it: there were upturned collars, untucked shirts, jeans with one leg rolled up, while ties were loosened or styled backwards. Almost every look was paired with trainers — which are sure to sell like hotcakes. Even the more polished looks were styled with jeans. That sense of rebellion echoed in the presentation of the juvenile models, who sauntered down the runway to a soundtrack of Bruce Springsteen, with their slouchy posture and their hands thrown in their pockets. Some more casual looks like logoed half-zips and knitwear and wide-leg jeans have instant commercial appeal. At the juncture between past and present, Anderson's proposition for the future was challenging, yet had a realistic slant. American singer Sabrina Carpenter at the Dior menswear show. Picture:If the standing ovation and rapturous applause from guests including Roger Federer, Daniel Craig, and Rihanna, suggested anything, the audience's appetite for new Dior is already insatiable. That the Northern Irish fashion designer would assume one of the most important positions in fashion first circulated as rumour in December. It permeated most corners of the industry in the coming months, especially as Anderson stepped down from his position as artistic director at Loewe. It was confirmed in April, when he succeeded Dior's men's artistic director, Kim Jones, and the prophecy was fulfilled when he replaced the brand's outgoing women's artistic director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, in early June. It is the first time the house has had a single creative director at the helm in over two decades. Anderson's arrival comes at a critical time for Dior. More than a household name, the brand is a global powerhouse, with revenues quadrupling between 2017 and 2023 to €9.5bn However, amid a luxury slowdown, declining demand, especially in China, is clinching profits at big houses from Louis Vuitton to Chanel. With a fresh outlook, Anderson is expected to stimulate momentum for the brand. Despite the enormous task, Anderson is one of the most ambitious talents of his generation. Between 2013 and 2025, Anderson transformed Loewe, a sleepy Spanish leather goods brand with €200m in sales, to one of the foremost luxury brands in the world, with close to €2bn in sales. Italian fashion designer Donatella Versace arriving at the Dior menswear show. Picture Emma da Silva / AFP via Getty Images He achieved these results while designing four collections for his eponymous label, JW Anderson, and two in collaboration with Japanese retailer Uniqlo. Now, Anderson's workload jumps from six to 18 collections per year with the addition of Dior. Many insiders are suggesting he is his generation's Karl Lagerfeld: a prolific creative who designed across Chanel, Fendi, and Karl Lagerfeld at the time of his death in 2019. With the scale of his ambition, it is easy to understand the comparison. Anderson's next outing for Dior will be presented during the spring/summer 2026 womenswear shows at Paris Fashion Week in September. Read More Anna Wintour to step aside as editor of American Vogue
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
Lorde: Virgin review – Glittery, gritty and fabulously absorbing
Virgin Artist : Lorde Label : Universal Early fame, the evidence would suggest, is both blessing and curse. Few artists will know what it is like to have a global number one, as Ella Yelich-O'Connor, aka Lorde , did with her debut single, Royals, in 2013. But then came the tricky question of what happened next. How could she follow up the overnight celebrity she achieved while still a teenager? Where could she go after Royals? She went everywhere, in a way. Her LP Melodrama , from 2017, was a splurgy, let-it-all-out reckoning with early adulthood. It found her connecting with Jack Antonoff , producer of Taylor Swift, and in the process frying the brain of the hitmaker Max Martin, who concluded that her single Green Light 'broke all the rules' in terms of its structure and tempo. Melodrama was a hit, but the drama was only starting. That D-word arrived in earnest with the shadows-in-sunshine of Solar Power , a folksy phantasmagoria full of David Lynch weirdness that divided her fans. READ MORE Lorde told The Irish Times this month that Solar Power was a process she had to go through – if only to come out the other side. It sounds like a lot of effort to go to. Still, you can appreciate the wisdom of her words when listening to Virgin, its glittery, gritty and fabulously absorbing follow-up. Here, triumphantly and irresistibly, is a brooding blockbuster as visceral and emotionally gory as its predecessor was darkly becalmed. [ Lorde on weight loss and body image: 'It's this evil little rite of passage for a lot of women' Opens in new window ] Since Royals, Lorde has emerged as one of pop's pre-eminent shape changers. She has characterised Virgin as self-conscious reconnection with her foundational years as a pop star – with the wide-eyed adolescent who wrote Ribs and Team, and who became a global sensation. A lot happens in a decade, however. Inevitably, then, her fourth album has a grown-up, lived-in quality absent from her early work. She's only 28, but already there are miles on the clock. Lorde feels the weight of it on What Was That, a propulsive teaser release about learning to fully inhabit your body while overcoming an unhappy break-up. Bad romances and physical manifestation of your trauma make for a rather abstruse pairing – even more so when taking into consideration the fact that Lorde has talked about using MDMA (name-checked in the chorus) to treat her anxiety, in particular her crippling stage fright. Yet for all the tune's esoteric qualities – few of us will microdose in order to overcome workplace anxiety – there is something readily comprehensible about the bone-deep nature of Virgin. That is the case whether Lorde is talking about going off her birth control or taking a pregnancy test, on Clearblue, or discussing her tomboyish qualities, on the menacingly woozy Man of the Year, a gothic weepy sure to take its place among the pantheon of Lorde ballads. Amid all the yearning and gurning, much of Virgin is straightforwardly and fantastically relentless. Lorde goes retro electropop with a vengeance on If She Could See Me Now. Certain to become a future fan favourite, it is a slow-mo synthwave wonder and the closest the LP comes to the cyberpunk confessional energy of Girl, So Confusing, her collaboration with Charli XCX from 2024. A work of many shapes and moods, Virgin sees catharsis turn to confessional on Favourite Daughter. It is a love letter to the singer's poet mother that blends the blinking-in-the-sunlight yearning of Pure Heroine , Lorde's first album, with a deep weariness of fame. (She has learned that it means more to her to be respected by her parents than to be cheered by strangers.) She bares her heart in a different way on Current Affairs. It opens a dolorous Joy Division-style bass riff, the gloomy tone reflected in the lyrics ('Mama, I'm so scared ... I'm crying on the phone'). Slathered in angst and regret, the lyrics scan as a meditation on a fling gone wrong ('on the boat it was pure and true'). It's a love song as noirish exorcism – as the best love songs always are. In that conversation with The Irish Times Lorde agreed that Virgin had an almost 'body horror' quality: it is tumultuous, fully in the moment and at times more about the texture than the lyrics. Rapturous, at times a little out of control, it's scarily great fun and – this seems to have been the point all the time – the spiritual opposite of Solar Power. The light has faded, darkness has crept in and Lorde is looking to the stars and re-engaging with her sense of wonder.
