YWL van Duyn

Genres: Drum and bass, electronic, chillout, lounge, House

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About YWL van Duyn

Living a pretty covert existence, Mr. Van Duyn is a very influencial artist operating in the background of (electronic) music. Stretching his music-empire from the UK to Switzerland down to Spain in Europe. The USA, Canada, Central (Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico) and South America are also his playing grounds. When starting as a DJ in 1996, YWL was pleasing the crowd with his gabber-style music in a club in The Netherlands. When given the opportunity in 1997, he was contracted by ID&T to create mixes for their radiostation "ID&T Radio". Furthermore, this is the place where he was first confronted with his ability to produce music. In the ID&T studio, his skills as a producer were formed and around 1999, at the age of only 17, he already had produced over 40 tracks under several aliases and on numerous labels. After a fierce dispute with one of the directors, Irfan van Ewijk (who left ID&T in 1994 and came back after 5 years of absence), he left ID&T and joined a competitor label: Rige. Little is known of his activities there, other than he was registered as member of the board at the Dutch House of Commerce. At the time, he was also being connected to the massive hardcore behemoth Masters of Hardcore, but again, little evidence other than a House of Commerce registration and a couple of signed documents aren't there. What is for sure, is that from this moment he decided to broaden his musical spectrum and began to concentrate on the dance scene. In December of 2000, he released "Ibiza Sunday" on one of the Ministry of Sound sublabels and it became a significant balearic hit that year. Following that succes, YWL co-produced numerous hits with artists as Etienne de Crécy, Michael Grey, Booty Luv and Tim DeLuxe on labels like Subliminal, DFA and Carma UK just to name a few... Somewhere around 2002, Van Duyn was (re)discovering hip hop and rap music when on a trip to the USA. Already fond of the music style, YWL got toghether with artist as Autnoyz and J-Boy to create the artistical album "Moods from the Darkside" in 2003. It was meant to be some sort of parody on the gangster rap genre. Also, from this year, YWL learned the skills to be a hiphop-DJ (something totally different from dance or gabber!), and he combined his mixing skills with the hiphop turntablism skills and soon had (again) numerous aliases as hiphop-DJ, spinning and producing mostly in New York and Miami almost every fortnight. He also discovered the world of reggaeton and dancehall around 2004 and begun to produce and spin this as a DJ as soon as he could and again, his influence was felt by many artist like Mr. Dis, Vybz Kartel, Dog Joe, 305 and even Pitbull, Tego Calderón and according to some substantial rumours from people in the industry: the Luny Tunes production group. He definetly produced several dozens of tracks for the Pineapple Tree and Conrad. Again, just to name a few. From the beginning of 2005, partly because of medical reasons, he slowed down his musical exploration and began to 'exploit' his musical knowledge and skills by letting himself being hired by anyone who can afford it. Producing and DJ-ing in a wide range of genres, his first encounters with booking agents weren't positive. Just after a few months, he left the famous DEEJAYBOOKING.COM agency and connected to the less famous, but more productive Redball agency. But again, after six months he ditched their services and began to manage his bookings by himself and his crew, which resulted to be an important step with a very positive outcome for him as an artist. It is for sure he owns several studios, labels (Smoove is entirely his) and clubs (He recently sold of his partnership in an Amsterdam clubconsortium) of various genres (urban, dance, reggae(ton) and drum n bass) around the world. YWL is clearly a busy entrepreneur, always on the lookout for new musical ideas, genres, places and artists to explore. He currently owns for sure several businesses in Aruba and Bonaire through his Smoove label. The purpose of the businesses remains unclear as, besides of the locations concerning the catering industry, it also involves a barbershop, a petshop and an office supply store for example. During the Ibiza season he's often to be found at the major clubs over there, both DJ-ing and partying! After a dispute with the board in 2004, he refused to ever again perform at club Space. But after numerous efforts from Space and Ministry of Sound convincing him otherwise (and the change of directors), he finally made an end of the feud in the summer of 2008 with a stunning opening fiesta set and multiple performances during that year. It is well known some of the parties are even organized by him, which explains a lot of business around the Space franchise and YWL's DJ and club activities. At the moment, the global venue behemoth Pacha seems to be very interested in Mr. Van Duyn's entrepreneurial capabitilies, where as his activities for them are very briefly noted in it's annual report of 2009. Mr Van Duyn is also being related to the Nikki Music label, (co-)producing their latest releases and as semi-resident at the Nikki Beach resorts all over the world. His further (semi-)residencies are yet unknown or vaguely plausible, mainly because of his use of multiple aliases as an artist. Refusing to use one artist alias (or at least a couple less) gives him the opportunity to perform where he wants, as long as clubs pay the hefty fee and he's enjoying it. As said, due to his covert (or better said: private) lifestyle, nobody actually knows his real name (YWL van Duyn could just be another alias), current habitat (he's often spotted in London) or all of his aliases. He's an outstanding autodidact, possessing skills beyond his musical capabilities, but then again, he's spotted at the wildest parties in the hottest clubs all over the world, both DJ-ing and partying hard... He's also very persistent in keeping his personal life out of his business and vice versa and doesn't hold back on violence on nosy journalists. One of his very, very few TV appearances, this one on North Italian television, resulted in causing havoc by his crew with the destruction of 2 studio camera's and molestation of an unknown amount of studio personnel, just because the reporter kept asking questions that were to personal. In 2006, he even was arrested (and two days later released without any charges at all) in London as being the suspected arsonist of a couple of journalist's homes. It is believed among the local clubmanagers he was most certainly responsible for the London club raids of September 2008, which almost cost Pacha it's license (the name sounds familiar?). His website www.ywlvanduyn.net is a maze of hints, clues and also mis-information, so you won't get any smarter from that either. A.K.A. 'DJ YWL', 'D-Yurr', 'Dyf'rence' (or D'Yfference, Dyff'rence idk), 'YurrSelve', 'Deux Y', 'Y hit Wonder', 'Yonni N', 'Gyanny', 'Ypsilon' (or 'Ipsylon') just to name a few... A.K.A. Horseleech?, Ganya Mandry?, Core Supremacy?, Freakbeat? This dude is pretty nameless, yet namefull >.< He's using the same alias-philosphy as Erick Morillo A.K.A. Ministers De la Funk A.K.A. Smooth Touch A.K.A. Club Ultimate A.K.A. Reel 2 Real or like Jakatta A.K.A. Raven Maize A.K.A. Joe Negro A.K.A. ... ... ... (etc.) It is most certain that they work or have worked together. Most of the 'evidence' are circumstantial, but coincidences like the release dates of their productions throughout the years being almost exactly the same (one week apart at the most) are just too freaky to ignore.

Taken from Last.fm

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