MySpace: www.myspace.com/robertluisdj
Robert Luis’ first contact with hip-hop sprung form watching break dancers dancing to the B Boys ‘2,3 Break’ as a young kid and then getting a mix tape from his older cousins. This is where the addiction began, but after a stint of trying his hand at break dancing and graffiti Robert found his feet and main area of interest in mixing.
Aged 16 Rob was asked to play his first DJ set at a mate’s party and from there, a string of local sets were offered as his Djing prowess began to grow. After a relocation to Brighton in the early 90’s to study at university, Robert found his attentions more focused more on Djing and the local party scene than studying and decided to start the club night, ‘Shake Yer Wig’, in 1992. ‘Shake Yer Wig’ was a mix of Hip Hop, funk, jazz and reggae, playing the freshest tunes of the time from Busta, Tribe, Premier, Jeru, KRS etc etc (now club classics), which was an instantly huge hit in a House saturated Brighton music scene. During this time Rob was booking and Djing with people who went on to become dominating forces in alternative dance music, such as Norman Cook and Mr Scruff.
Shake Yer Wig continued until when Robert Luis and Paul Jonas set up the scene-defining club-night phonic:hoop. Phonic:hoop was a huge success (once being voted into the top 10 club nights in the world in Face magazine) and in 1999 Rob and Paul decided to build on this success to form a record label called Tru-Thoughts.
These days, as well as fulfilling his A&R/Co-Owner duties to the label, Rob finds time to DJ across the world, air a radio show every Sunday on Brighton Juice FM (Unfold Radio) and get involved in musical projects under the names Nirobi and Me&You (both signed to Tru Thoughts).
Nirobi & Barakas are the pseudonyms Robert Luis and Simon Green (of Bonobo fame) chose for themselves when they got together to write a few bollywood and latin influenced dance floor killers for their DJ sets. An overwhelming amount of interest in the tracks resulted in the Tru-Thoughts 12″ release of ‘Bungee Jump Against Racism’.
In a similar fashion Robert Luis is also one half of me&you with Tru Thoughts producer extraordinaire TM Juke. The duo first collaborated in 2005 to write a one-off track for their DJ sets, then in the summer of 2006 they were invited to play at Bestival and recorded a couple of extra tracks especially for the gig. After an astounding reaction from the crowd they were inundated with enquiries through MySpace and the Tru Thoughts website so decided to record a full-length album together. Their debut long player, entitled ‘Floating Heavy’, features a unique mix of sounds encapsulating elements from break beat, soul, jazz, dub step, broken beat, reggae, disco to drum and bass.
