STEVE AOKI SELLS THE FUTURE

Evangelists say Web3 is going to change everything. Are they right? World-renowned DJ and entrepreneur Steve Aoki wants to prove it to you.

- JESSICA KLEIN

Most people heard noise. Steve Aoki heard music. It was just, in his words, intentionally abrasive” music.

What’s the difference between noise and intentionally abrasive? This was back in the 1990s, when Steve Aoki was a kid growing up in the California punk and hardcore music scene. Bands were playing loud, cacophonous stuff. His parents called it devil’s music.” But Aoki was intrigued, because although this music turned most people off, it also drew a community together. It wasn’t just garbage; it was a barrier to entry, and an appealing puzzle. It didn’t fit with the world, and that was what spoke to me,” Aoki says. You have to climb through the noise to find the gem.”

In one way or another, that mindset has guided Aoki through a singular career. He is ever curious about the opportunity that others are overlooking, because it might seem too small or weird or noisy. Then, he says, he brings that noise out from the corner and into the masses, and builds a community around it.”

He is, for example, among the world’s most famous DJs—the rare artist to transcend the club scene and achieve mainstream awareness. But he’s also a savvy entrepreneur who absorbed brand-building lessons from his father, the founder of the successful restaurant chain Benihana. Aoki is a celebrated music producer, creator of the record label Dim Mak, as well as a clothing line called Dim Mak Collection that has partnered with the likes of Adult Swim and DC Comics—and he was recently named the chief music officer” of Orange theory Fitness which means he sets the tone for the company’s workout classes worldwide).