 
His name might be linked to South African hip hop, but DJ Milkshake has graduated beyond the genre to become a master of any dancefloor. His ability to read and rock any crowd, anywhere is what has made him one of Africa’s top-rated entertainers. 

Milkshake has devoted the last ten years to honing his DJ skills and conquering dancefloors at the country’s top-rated clubs, parties and festivals.  Leading national radio station 5FM snapped him up in 2010 and every Friday night from 22h00 to 01h00 he quenches SA’s thirst for club-rocking sounds on ‘The Shakedown’. 

Recently, Milkshake’s was selected as the face and DJ of Castle Lite’s Summer 2013/14 TV Campaign and the Extra Cold Summer Tour which included a performance alongside US rap star Wale.  Rubbing shoulders with the superstars is nothing new - a few months earlier he opened for R ‘n B sensation Neyo. 

His interest in the mechanics of production led him into the studio in 2013 where he took on the role of producer.  The first single on his newly established record label, ‘Living On The Edge’ – a collaboration between award-winning beatboxer George Avakian and highly-regarded emcee AKA smashed the charts receiving airplay on all the biggest local stations all over Africa.

What is it about his sonic approach that has created so much fever around the name DJ Milkshake?

This Soweto-raised DJ has conquered an industry that’s notoriously competitive and cutthroat. His ascent is tied to an undying urge better himself and what he offers the crowd. An early adopter of technology, Milkshake took full advantage of his flair for all things digital and merged this with his innate understanding of what will detonate a dancefloor - this potent combination of skill and passion allowed him to cultivate a matchless, magnetic take on club music.  With his new approach, versatility and fresh style Milkshake has shaken up the established order and carved out a highly successful career for himself.

The last five years have been a whirlwind of parties, clubs, festivals and A-List events. Demand for his smouldering sets has placed him behind the controls at virtually every club and hip hop event in the country - and beyond South African borders in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and Zanzibar.
Milkshake’s success is all his own.  He has spent considerable time and energy moulding the distinctive sonic identity that his many fans and followers appreciate.  His blossoming career was not instantaneous – but rather a lifetime in the making. Reach into his past and you’ll find a kid who would insist on playing only his cassettes in the car; a teenager whose vast music collection consumed most of his waking life. 

While attending WITS University Milkshake made the realisation that DJing was the true vehicle in which to deliver his music.  He co-founded the DJ Society and become of the hottest DJs on campus. This breakthrough also meant a difficult decision: his music career was beginning to conflict with his studies – and against the wishes of his parents, Milkshake decided to make music his primary focus. 

Seizing the momentum of his fast-rising profile, Milkshake began reaching out to radio stations – submitting mixes to all the hottest radio shows and securing guest DJ residencies on Metro FM and later 5FM. He also claimed many titles in toughly fought DJ Competitions - in 2007 he was a finalist in Go-TV’s National DJ Competition and Runner up on Hennessey’s Artistry’s National DJ Competition. In 2009 he won the top spot in News Café’s National DJ competition – a title which took him on a tour around the country and overseas to Miami with none other than DJ Fresh.  During that same trip Milkshake landed a gig in New York – proof that his hard work was starting to pay off.

With a steady-eyed focus and beats that rock any party, Milkshake has earned his place amongst the country’s top entertainers.  In his exciting new role as a record label owner and artists you can be certain that the best is yet to come from this future-facing talent.


Charismatic, captivating and magnetic Thato “DJ Fresh” Sikwane, is one of SA’s most recognised energetic and dynamic voices of Radio.

DJ Fresh boasts a diversity of talents that have seen him making major waves in the South African entertainment industry for over 30years. He is a sought-after television personality, popular social media sensation, and prolific radio and international club DJ.

Born in Botswana, Fresh discovered his love for music at the age of 13 where he deejayed at Boarding School. He then went on to do his first radio show in 1992 on Botswana’s RB2. His passion for the entertainment industry then led to him leaving his law studies to pursue Media studies and Journalism full time in 1994. 

In 1997, Fresh joined regional station YFM – where he coined the term Yona Ke Yona - at its inception as the host to the afternoon drive, later switching to the breakfast drive in 2003. In a big and bold move, Fresh joined national radio station 5FM in 2006. This move solidified Fresh as one of the Biggest radio personalities in SA to date with a massive crossover and cross border audience. And now, in a shock move, Metro FM welcomed DJ Fresh onto the urban radio station as host of the breakfast show.

Throughout his entertainment career, his love of house music has pushed boundaries and led to the release of numerous classic albums including the popular “Fresh House Flava” series – which have been highly instrumental in the consumption of House music throughout South Africa. He has also been a lead influence on launching some of SA’s household DJ such as Euphonik; Cleo; Kent; Sbu; Monde; Ryan The DJ; Dino Bravo etc. 

His electrifying ability to mix house music has landed Fresh on International stages throughout Johannesburg, Miami, London, Cape Town, Moscow, Brisbane, Ibiza, Leeds, Durban, Gaborone, Birmingham, Dubai, Montreal and Melbourne where he shared the DJ booth with “Little Louie” Vega, Armand Van Helden, Oskido, Jazzy Jeff, Ready D, Vinny Da Vinci, Christos, Gregory, Black Coffee, Kshmr, David Guetta, DJ Snake, Dash Berlin, Headhunterz and Martin Garrix. 

Unafraid to always reinvent the game it is no wonder that Fresh has been able to branch out into various projects aligned with the entertainment industry and build a successful business structure under his name. As a multi-faceted personality, Fresh has efficaciously run his own company Big Dawg Productions; partnered with Euphonik to create the mega brand property F.Eu; and formed part of a collective of DJ’s, producers, media personality and musicians called DJU. Inspired by international conferences such as The Miami Winter Music Conference, DJU established the Southern African Music Conference in 2005 which held crucial talks for deejays and producers and DJs - it is a critical platform for Southern African dance music industry practitioners to keep pace with, and eventually lead global developments.

Apart from his contagious laugh being heard on radio and being seen on international stages, Fresh also lends his entertainment expertise to reality talent Show – SA’s Got Talent as a trusted Judge.
His loyal fans have continued to grow into the millions on radio and TV; and have followed his every career move. More so, fans have revelled in excitement as The Big Dawg announced his major move to Metro FM as host of the Fresh Breakfast this year. 

It is not surprising that DJ Fresh is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon as his career continues to grow at an exponential rate. Be sure to tune into Metro FM for the Fresh Breakfast every Monday – Friday from 5am-8am as Fresh and his dynamic team continue to entertain, break down boundaries and bring South Africans together.

Sir LSG began his career as a DJ in 2006 whilst studying to become an electrical engineer at the University of The Witwaterstrand. It seems the love for music soon took precedence as the young SIr LSG started collecting records. Soon after Co-founding Hood Natives in 2007 with 3 other DJs based in Soweto, Sir LSG enrolled at the Soul Candi Institute of Music to learn more about electronic music production. After completing the short course at Soul Candi, Sir LSG enrolled at the Academy of Sound Engineering to do a two year diploma majoring in Music Production & Audio Post Production. 

It was the 2008 Southern African Music Conference that became a defining juncture in Sir LSG's music path, when he caught the ear of the legendary DJ Christos, whom since became his devoted mentor. Thanks to the relationship with Christos, German producer Ralf GUM came across Sir LSG's song “Sax in the City” in 2011 , which finally found its way to light when released on GOGO Music. With remixes from another German based Producer Raw Artistic Soul, and a fellow South African DJ/Producer Nastee Nev, "Sax In The City" reached the second spot on Traxsource's top singles chart. 

To date, the Mafikeng born Lesego Sefako has had the honour to perform at various venues across South Africa, alongside South African legends such as DJ Christos, Vinny Da Vinci, Tim White, DJ Ganyani, DJ Mbuso and Greg Maloka to name but a few, as well as international acts; Ralf GUM, Rocco, Monique Bingham, and Portia Monique.  On his solo path since breaking away from the group Hood Natives, Sir LSG has since done remixes for UPZ aka Avi Elman, Ralf GUM, Andy Compton, Nathan Adams and MAQman. He has also collaborated with Brian Temba, a legendary South African R&B singer/songwriter and trumpeter Kafele on a song titled All I Am, which enjoyed great air play on South African Radio Stations and became a local dance floor anthem. In 2014 Sir LSG was voted by Traxsource at Number 20 on the Top 100 Afro House Procers of the year. 

Follow my official playlist: https://c.alokmusic.com/spotplaylist/thisisalok

Shows:
Brazil - contact@alokmusic.com
Europe - Tom Schroeder tom.schroeder@teamwass.com / Nick Matthews nick.matthews@teamwass.com
North & South America - Rob Markus:  rmarkus@wmeagency.com / Jonas Schumann: JSchumann@wmeagency.com
Asia: Samuel Wald: SSW@wmeagency.com

Ralf GUM is one of the most respected figures in the house music scene for the distinctive qualities in his exceptional productions and DJ-sets. Since Ralf’s DJ career started in 1990 he always stayed true to his passion for cool and diverse house music. Harmony & Soul & Groove – are the main ingredients, but just some aspects of Ralf’s typical deep sound. With an instinctive feeling for the right vibe, he convincingly performed all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South- and North America. In autumn 2008 Ralf toured in South Africa for the first time with great response and was the first German house DJ who was booked in Botswana and Swaziland. In 2012 Ralf finally emigrated from his homeland of Germany to the world's current hot-bed for Soulful House Music, South Africa. 

Ralf GUM is producing music since 1993 and worked with notable artists such as Inaya Day, Beady Belle, Caron Wheeler, Robert Owens, Kenny Bobien, Michael Procter, Wunmi, Concha Buika or the fascinating Monique Bingham. He released on and remixed for top house labels like Mn2S, Papa, Peppermint Jam, Tommy Boy, Compose, Sole Music, Look At You or Defected. His first remix for Defected’s classic record 'Love is what you need (Look ahead)' by King Unique instantly went to the 1 position on Traxsource's download charts in March 2009. Ralf has released numerous well-known songs, amongst them the soulful hit of 2008 “Kissing Strangers” (GOGO Music) featuring Monique Bingham, which was a bestseller in its genre. Thus it scored the number 1 in the “Top 100 Singles 2008” and the “biggest house track 2008” in the annual chart of the ultra-credible Traxsource download-shop. Alone in 2009 Ralf’s works made it 4 times to the top spot in the Traxsource sales chart and he claimed various more Top 10 positions. But his success of course isn’t limited to the Traxsource charts. He had various #1 download-chart positions on Clickgroove, made it to the Top 10 sales of various other download shops and his single “Little W. 12th St.” was amongst the 10 best selling house-songs of the year on the Japanese download-site Wasabeat in 2009. His records are constantly receiving worldwide airplay and can be found in countless playlists of major radio stations including e.g. UK’s “BBC 1”, France’s “Radio FG” or South Africa’s “Metro FM”. Moreover he gained number one positions in the playlists “YFM’s Urban Top 40” or Botswana’s Yarona Mascom Charts where he stayed for instance for 4 weeks with “Complicated feat. Kafele” in May 2010. Further acclaimed hits of Ralf include “All This Love For You” (GOGO Music) featuring Diamondancer, “Ponle Tumbao” (Tommy Boy / Flamingo Discos / Milk & Sugar), "Helena Brown - Canção Dourada" (Peppermint Jam) or „Ralf GUM feat. Concha Buika – Nobody can touch me” (GOGO Music). Ralf GUM’s productions became a worldwide renown trademark in the house scene and UK’S TTR magazine called Ralf “one of Germany’s finest” already in 2005.

But Ralf not only convinces as a producer, but also his DJ-sets have helped him building up his reputation as a forward thinking tastemaker. During his career he had various residencies in South-Germany including the "Airport" (Wuerzburg /Germany), which was the living-room for his interpretation of house for more than 11 years. During more than a decade he captured the crowd with his sessions every Friday night and hosted other worlds-top artists like DJ Gregory, Martin Solveig, Lenny Fontana or Frankie Feliciano, to name just a few. End of 2006 Ralf started his residency at Climax in Stuttgart (Germany), where he can be found regularly since then. From 2002 till 2007 Ralf was holding a bi-weekly event at "Studio-Lounge" (Wuerzburg, Germany) which was called “the deepest and most soulful party of Germany” by the Subculture Magazine. In 2009 Ralf’s tight schedule included 2 extensive South Africa tours and Ralf was invited by DJU and the department of Arts and Culture to conduct various work shops at the Southern African Music conference. In 2010 and 2011 Ralf was selected again as international panellist for the annual Southern African Music Conference where he was teaching about music-production, label business, DJ-ing and more. Nowadays he is frequently found in various South African cities. As a DJ Ralf is steadily travelling and played at some of the best events around the world, including e.g. the “Southport Weekender” (Southport, UK), “Rave on Snow” (Saalbach, Austria), “Nature One” (Germany), “Sundaze” (Jakarta, Indonesia), “Dancevalley” (Amsterdam, Netherlands), “Mo’Vibes” (Munich, Germany) or the “Vodacom Unlimited Festival” (Orlando Stadium, Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa) which was attended by more than 15000 people. He graced the decks at clubs like “360” (Dubai, UAE), “El Devino” (Ibiza, Spain), “Amika” (Miami, USA), “The Room” (Tokyo, Japan), “ECU / Echoes” (Rimini, Italy), “Garito Café” (Palma de Mallorca, Spain), “Disco” (Sao Paulo, Brasil), “Volksgarten” (Vienna, Austria), “House 22” (Pretoria, South Africa), “Days like this” (Birmingham, UK), “Barokko” (Budapest, Hungary) “Marula Cafe” (Madrid, Spain), “Soulstice” (Oslo, Norway), “Oxa” (Zürich, Switzerland), “Atlantis” (Basel, Switzerland), “Stereo Sushi” (Antwerp, Belgium), “Mansion” (Amsterdam, Netherlands), “GURU Club” (Tibisli, Georgia), “Pacha” (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) or “Cocoon” (Frankfurt, Germany).

Ralf GUM embarked on the development of his own record label GOGO Music in 2001. With strong ambitions and his love for music being the driving force, GOGO Music has become Germany’s, if not one of world’s most reputable soulful house music labels. Late 2005 GOGO Music was called “one of the hottest imprints around” by UK’s leading magazine “Blues & Soul” and Germany’s “Subculture” wrote that “GOGO Music is the prime German house label”. In April 2009 Chicago’s best house music publication “5 Magazine” stated, that “GOGO Music has become synonymous with the best Deep House produced in Europe” and 2010 UK’s magazine “SoulM8” certified that “GOGO Music is "one of Germany’s best independent labels". With his label-work Ralf has been pivotal for the international breakthrough of artists like Raw Artistic Soul or Black Coffee and the discovery of many other outstanding talents. In 2003 Ralf initiated the GOGO Music radio-show. What began as a monthly show transmitted on one internet-radio rapidly became one of the most popular broadcasts within the house community and beyond. Since early 2006 the radio show is done on a weekly basis and is to date aired by more than 50 FM- and internet-stations around the globe. The GOGO Music radio show residents Ralf GUM and Benny Pecoraio (aka Ben Moss) plus few selected guests are presenting hebdomadal nothing but the finest house music in a pure one hour DJ mix.

Next to his Ralf GUM productions, he started two further projects. "SUGAR BEAT", is a collaboration with drummer Steffen Meder which developed out of their unique live performance: “Jazzy Live Drums & Uplifting Spinning”. With SUGAR BEAT’s irresistible sound a new broken beat style is being created. After some sweet remixes on GOGO Music, in 2006 the first own productions have been released on the “GOGO Music Spring Collection 06”. Together with soul-mate Benny Pecoraio, Ralf joined forces and started “4 Ears”. Their first release 'Can't Be Without You' was signed to Canadian deep house label Iwanai Music and hit immediately the Traxsource Top10.

During his career Ralf had the pleasure to compile and mix various CD-Compilations including for example “Arrival Vol. I” in 2004, a double Mix-CD together with Howard Donald (of famous pop-group Take That), for which they toured together all over Germany. As well in 2004 Ralf’s compilation “Studio – the finest in lounge and house music”, was released and selected as CD of the month in the December edition of Germany’s “Raveline” magazine. In February 2005 the first GOGO Music label-compilation “GO!” including highlights of the first 3 years label work came out. It was called the best compilation of the year by UK’S “TTR” magazine. In October 2006 the second part “GO!!” hit the market and achieved likewise attention and success as the first edition.

In 2006 Ralf GUM held his first GOGO Music Winter Music Conference event in Miami with great success. With an impressive line-up including e.g. Kenny Dixon Jr aka Moodyman, Theo Parrish, Markus Enochson, Glenn Underground plus the GOGO Music DJs, the party went down in a storm and was one of the most talked about at the conference. 2007 saw GOGO Music teaming up with Atal Music and Bubble Soul for a joint WMC event at Hotel Victor, called “Yes Please”. With an equally great line-up including e.g. Jamie Lewis, Raw Artistic Soul and many others, it was a great success and the kick-off for further “Yes Please” parties: The critical acclaimed WMC event in 2008 at Sagamore and the ADE 2008 event at Mansion. More highlights worth to adduce are Ralf’s appearance at MTV’s “Battle of the DJs” in April 2003 and several invitations to the You.FM Clubnight , a show dedicated to electronic music and club culture, which was transmitted on the German national radio-and TV-station Hessischer Rundfunk (2 times in 2005, one time in 2006, 2007 and 2009).

In 2008 Ralf GUM unveiled his long awaited debut masterpiece album titled “Uniting Music” on his label GOGO Music. Composing a continuous piece of music, seamless and blended into a luscious texture of soulful-, afro-and latin-house and jazz inspired grooves, Ralf showcased his ability to create wonderful original songs. With each song intertwining with another, he’s pushing the boundaries well beyond the traditional dj mix sense! Almost seeming like one beautiful track the whole album contained it all: really pretty dreamy tracks, some real groovin’ live sounding deals and some late night slices of hypnotic house, too. The album received great plaudit worldwide, as for example UK’s “M8” Magazine called the CD „simply one of the best albums of the year” and the German 3Sat TV show “Kulturzeit” wrote on its web-site that “no single second of the album bores”. “Uniting Music” was released by Rambling Records in Japan and by Soul Candi in South Africa, too.

2012 saw the release of Ralf GUM’s second long-player titled “Never Leaves You” including “Take Me To My Love” which has become the biggest House Anthem in South Africa this summer and reached the number #1 spot on South Africa’s biggest radio-station Metro FM for 3 weeks. It’s just one of the many highlights on Ralf’s album, a sort of vocal house dream team, bringing together the heavenly tonsils of Kenny Bobien, Robert Owens, Kafele and former Soul II Soul star Caron Wheeler amongst many others. In the talented hands of Ralf that team complimented rather than countered an impressive, truly soulful collection of songs and emphatically demonstrates his ability to orchestrate soul-house goodness on the grandest possible scale. The album not only received critical acclaim globally, but reached GOLD status in South Africa.

The hallmark of Ralf’s sound is his love for jazzy harmonies coupled with wicked underground beats. But the distinctive groove isn’t the only reason for Ralf’s success – his passion for all things soulful shines through in all he does. This helps him creating a simply irresistible groove every time he emerges from the studio or works the turntables. Due to his successful work in various areas there is no denying that Ralf GUM has established in the top-league of the most prolific dj/producers in the house scene.

Links: 

Label-website: www.GOGO-Music.net
Artist-web-site: www.RalfGUM.com
Facebook-site: facebook.com/Ralf.GUM.GOGO 
Myspace-site: www.myspace.com/RalfGUM
Twitter: www.twitter.com/RalfGUM
Youtube: www.youtube.com/RalfGUM 
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/ralf-gum-gogo-music


Grammy Award Winner, Producer, Remixer, DJ

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