San Francisco, CA · house · electronic

Zhu

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'Faded' built the mystique; the falsetto-noir live show keeps it — dance music's shadowy leading man.

Zhu is the project of Steven Zhu, born April 28, 1989, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area of Chinese heritage. He attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory, played in jazz bands and orchestral ensembles at school, and went on to study at the USC Thornton School of Music, graduating in 2011.

He released his first track, an Outkast mashup called "Moves Like Ms Jackson," anonymously in February 2014, followed by more SoundCloud tracks and the EP The Nightday, which topped Triple J's weekly countdown. Its lead single, "Faded," drew support from Pete Tong, reached the top three in Australia and the UK, went platinum in Australia and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording.

His debut album, Generationwhy, arrived in July 2016 and premiered live during his closing set in Coachella's Sahara Tent, a performance that drew comparisons to Daft Punk from at least one reviewer. By then his sound had settled into deep and tech house with bass-leaning club elements and streaks of funk and soul, built around his own smoky falsetto.

A November 2015 collaborative EP, Genesis Series, brought in Skrillex, AlunaGeorge, A-Trak and Bone Thugs N Harmony; its Skrillex collaboration "Working for It" reached the charts and went platinum in Australia.

The Zhu presentation has stayed deliberately shadowed, with silhouetted photography and dim, heavily designed lighting in performance. Live, he works with a band and saxophone alongside electronics, pushing the recorded material into longer, darker arrangements.

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