Toledo, OH · bass · riddim

Crankdat

4 upcoming festivals ↓

High-velocity festival bass designed for maximum impact in the shortest possible window — Ohio-bred drops engineered like demolition charges.

Crankdat is the stage name of Christian Smith, born in 1997 and raised in Ohio. He turned down a full scholarship to run track at Kent State University to pursue music instead, and had already begun producing while still in high school, working out early ideas years before any wider recognition arrived.

He first drew attention through remixes rather than original material, reworking other artists' tracks and posting them online. A remix of Fetty Wap's "Trap Queen" picked up millions of plays and brought him to the attention of established producers including Skrillex and The Chainsmokers while he was barely out of his teens.

Crankdat's own productions sit at the heavier end of festival bass, pulling from riddim, dubstep and trap. The arrangements are short and built around dense, aggressive drops rather than long builds, a style meant to hit hard in a compressed span of time.

Original tracks followed the remix success, including the Jauz collaboration "I Hold Still" and "Dollars," both released in 2017. In 2019 he mounted the Gearworld tour, built around his own material rather than the reworks that first made his name.

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