Robby East’s rise in electronic music is a story worth telling.
It’s the path of a musically gifted individual who goes beyond the typical path to stamp his unique mark on the melodic house scene. This in-depth profile will move through the biggest points in his career, from the early influence of his musical household to cutting through the noise of a genre bloated with imitators, all while garnering support from some of the biggest names in whichever sound and space he was pursuing.
We will spotlight East’s knack for blending traditional musicianship with the ever-growing popularity of club music and culture, which sets him apart in a crowded field. We will also discuss how he’s used creative collaborations to further define Robby East’s sound and broaden his musical horizons. These partnerships are more than just features; they are integral to his growth as an artist.
With recent gigs at Eurosonic 2024, support on massive radio stations like BBC Radio 1 and Sirius XM Chill, signings to some of the most coveted labels in the space, and a handful of other massive milestones all coming together at once, we had to do a deeper dive into what makes Robby unique, and poised to be such a powerhouse in the industry throughout the rest of the decade.
The Foundations
East’s earliest stages of his career as an artist were defined by a quick run of successes in the melodic house genre, garnering him accolades and support from some of the biggest DJs in the space. This is no easy task, considering that stadium-level acts like Lane 8 and Le Youth created such a massive boom in popularity of the genre that the sound was quickly cluttered with cookie-cutter attempts on the genre by an endless wave of producers.
But East was able to cut through this noise because his background has been steeped in music since his earliest days. Raised in a highly musical household, he was encouraged to pick up and perfect his skills on various instruments, with the piano and the guitar dominating much of his time early on. This emphasis on musicality and organic elements made his signature sound stand up in the crowded and otherwise templatized space mentioned above.
A massive turning point for him was being introduced to the sounds of now global superstar artists like Martin Garrix and Tiësto during the EDM boom of the 2010s, which helped show Robby the power of electronic music but also its accessibility as an art form overall and just how easy it was to translate the musical ideas in his head into digital form.
In just a few short years of his lifelong pursuit of musicality and his newfound interest in the potential of electronic music converging, the world began to notice that this guy meant business, and it only took a couple of crucial performances for these embers of his career to catch flame.
The Milestones That Matter
The most noticeable of all these opportunities was when Robby was put on the radar of Oliver Heldens, who was fascinated by Robby’s sound, which at the time could be best described as super high energy yet still deeply emotional. This was around the Future House boom, which allowed Robby’s second release to be placed on Spinnin’ Records alongside Helden’s HELDEEP RECORDS. The track has amassed well over 3.5 million streams, which is quite the feat for an early release in any artist’s career.
Over the next few years, East would continue to refine his sound as it took an even more nuanced and melodic direction. After such a wildly popular release on Spinnin’, most artists would likely have chosen to double down on the formula that garnered this initial success. Still, Robby took the road less traveled by aiming for a more musically driven and texturally dense sound.
Through a couple of strategic releases alongside a small network of labels, he kept the momentum strong despite the seemingly drastic change in sound. You’d be hard-pressed to find a release in his catalog that didn’t amass less than a million streams on Spotify, regardless of the label it was released on.
But in May 2022, Robby’s first release on Lane 8’s iconic This Never Happened label was one of his career’s biggest and most affirming, solidifying him as one of the most prominent up-and-coming acts in the melodic house space. Few artists, even top-tier ones, can launch a smaller artist’s career in the same way that Lane 8 can and his seal of continued approval.
None of this would have been possible without Robby unique approach to production as a whole, one driven by artistic synergy both within his breadth of creative inspiration (like taking melodic club music and pairing it with the organic instruments he obsessed over in his youth) and with the synergies found through collaboration.
Collaborations and Artistic Synergy
The collaborative works of Robby East are packed with a unique type of electricity that’s rare in an industry that often runs on ego and an ‘if you’re not first, you’re last’ mentality. Instead, it focuses more on an ethos of being more significant than the sum of its parts.
This synergy on the track “Tonight In A Bottle,” featuring Hannah Boleyn, is a prime example. Working with Boleyn was not just another studio session for East—but one that truly revealed just how much magic can happen in the studio when two artists are completley on the same page about the vision of the song, but each has their inputs on how to see the track through to its completion.
It began with admiration for Boleyn’s performance on “One Drink,” luck played its part when East discovered that her producer and co-writer was a friend and former ADE cohort, Amrit Singh. This connection fueled a collaborative spirit, culminating in a track that was a labor of love and patience, perfected over many iterations to resonate with the warmth and spontaneity of the season. When East’s hands met the keys to craft a backdrop for Boleyn’s vocals, a summer hit was born, highlighted by an arresting violin hook that tugs at the listener’s heartstrings, but this is far from anecdotal evidence as it can be proven time and time again with collaborative hits with other industry talent such as Sarah de Warren, Rolipso, and others.
How It All Comes Together
Collaboration, synergy, musicality, and the fearlessness to break away from the commercial sounds in pursuit of what’s authentic are all easy industry buzzwords and phrases to suggest and advocate for, but what does Robby have to show for it?
Nothing encapsulates the ethics we’ve discussed throughout this profile piece better than his Marula / Toucan EP, which dropped on This Never Happened in early 2023. It’s no surprise to hear that this wildly popular EP was a collaborative EP alongside the artist A.M.R., a heavy-hitter on top labels like Silk. This EP has amassed well over a collective 2 million streams and even landed in a coveted spot on SiriusXM Chill in the summer of 2023 for two months straight (no easy feat, even for some of the most prominent artists in the game). BBC Radio 1 was also a big supporter of Marula, which helped catapult that release to even new levels of success.
Looking ahead, East anticipates releasing new music with Bolier—a dream collaboration turned reality. Their distinctive yet complementary styles promise to yield a sound fans have been waiting for.
Forging Ahead
As Robby’s career solidifies as a rising star in an overly crowded space, it’s essential always to be mindful of what that space is for you as an artist. Not doing so risks derailing an entire career if the wrong trends or inspirations are chased. But this seems to have been a box that East confidently checked long ago, back in 2022, when he consciously tried to shift his sound away from the more energetic party music and into the more niche genres where he is today.
It’s proof that he’s not chasing popularity, bloated social metrics, or anything other than being authentic to his vision as an artist and musician. Yet, in doing so, all of these success metrics come naturally to him, setting him up for a long career that is as successful as it is grounded and as we look to the future throughout the rest of 2024 and beyond, there is undoubtedly no better time to keep your eyes on this young producer as he will be one of the defining acts throughout the industry before the decade is out.
