MALUGI

"I love the club so much. There's no place in the world where I feel so happy, authentic and at home."

If anyone can pull off a blend of glitzy pop, soaring trance, and groovy house in the clubs of Berlin, it's MALUGI. Oozing with charisma and warmth whether he's DJing, playing B2B with his longtime collaborator Marlon Hoffstadt or producing turbo-charged beats, the German artist whips up joy, togetherness and feelings of exhilaration on the dancefloor.

In 2023 alone, MALUGI toured Europe and Australia, playing in revered clubs like Blitz in Munich and The Cause in London, Rex in Paris, and H7 Warehouse in Amsterdam during ADE. There, he played B2B with Marlon Hoffstadt, closing the weekend on a rapturous note and earning the top-rated set of the weekend from Dutch media platform VPRO. Across the pond, MALUGI's Australia tour saw him head up seven solo shows and one B2B with his "better half" Hoffstadt, adding to a growing fanbase across the globe.

Closer to home, MALUGI is a MELT regular and plays the iconic festival yearly. In Berlin, where MALUGI lives, he curates and hosts his own party series, Club Heart Broken, in the sleek surrounds of Watergate, adding a splash of fun, colour and charm to the city's heaving dance music circuit.

Unapologetically himself, MALUGI has never conformed to trends or Berlin's primarily techno-driven aesthetics. Instead, he channels his energy into producing and DJing the more zingy and zany sounds within electronic music. Shaded with enchanting melodies, chunky kickdrums, big basslines and tongue-in-cheek vocals, MALUGI's blueprint has a universal appeal. Tracks like 'Reach Out,' 'Hot Right Now,' 'Really Happy' and 'Take It Back (Right Now)' have received plays on BBC Radio One, while DJs from Gerd Janson to Tiesto have supported his productions. Co-producing with Marlon Hoffstadt, Janis Zielinski, Narciss, and many more, he pours every ounce of sparkle and glee into his work, stirring up the infectious MALUGI effect on large-scale and intimate dancefloors.

Raised in Cologne, MALUGI's mother introduced him to dance music in the late 90s whilst on holiday in Ibiza. Hearing the throb of bass from the seminal club Space, the seven-year-old MALUGI grew intrigued with the concept of daytime partying and dance music. At home, he started digging for house CD compilations and vinyl records, further fuelling his interest in club culture.

In his teens, family friend Jaspa Jones (of legendary trance duo Blank & Jones) mentored MALUGI and showed him the ropes in production and DJing. At 16, MAUGLI played his first couple of gigs in Cologne before moving to Berlin in 2014. It was the year he met Hoffstadt and the birth of a beautiful friendship and ongoing creative collaboration. The pair bounced ideas off one another and later launched their first label and party series in Berlin.

While the project was a success, MALUGI's heart remained in the effervescent worlds of pop, but this genre was hard to find in Berlin at the time. So in 2017, MALUGI founded Club Heart Broken, testing the vibe in Cologne before bringing the party to the German capital. Fast forward six years and Club Heart Broken has a residency in Watergate and has hosted events across Europe, merging an idiosyncratic mix of first-time ravers and headsy clubbers.

With previous streams on Rinse FM and HÖR, MALUGI made his Boiler Room debut in December last year, playing to a packed-out room in Ghent, marking another milestone in his journey. Plans for 2024 include major festival bookings worldwide and running Club Heart Broken as a record label, where he will champion artists who share the same unabashed approach to producing elated and uplifting sounds.

No matter the project or idea in mind, MALUGI's two-decade-long love affair with dance music continues, and it's only going one way from here with bells on.