Sunday Reads: What You Need to Know About Kygo

Aha and Kygo are the only two acts from Norway ever achieve international commercial success. That statistic speaks to the odds that 24-year-old electronic dance music sensation, Kygo (née Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll) has beat in becoming the artist with the most streams in SoundCloud history. Kygo has experienced a meteoric rise, remixing everything from Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing, to Ed Sheeran’s I See Fire, to Rihanna’s Stay in a new genre he has popularized called “Tropical House.”

That means happy, melodic beats that resonate perfectly on a beach in Ibiza, broadcast at a balmy music festival like Ultra, or in a steamy nightclub in Rome. Interesting that an artist from a Scandinavian country just south of the Artic Circle would pioneer a sound that is most at home in the islands. “I didn’t set out to come up with a tropical sound,” explains Kygo. “I just like playing songs with happy vibes and good feelings. I guess summer is the “happy time” of year and so that’s what people associate with happy music.” Happy or not, the sound is immediately recognizable—no doubt part of its allure.