RL Grime

Reared amid the smoky, off-kilter creations of Los Angeles’ storied “beat scene”, the DJ and electronic producer RL Grime wields trap hi-hats, chest-caving bass and languid synth lines that melt out of sound systems like Salvador Dalí’s clocks. Born Henry Steinway in February 1991, he grew up in L.A. in a creative family—his father was an architect and his mother was a fine-arts photographer. He loved 50 Cent as a kid, made regular trips to the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas in school, and started making beats after being inspired by the dubstep-inflected ballads of James Blake. In the early 2010s, he joined the Wedidit Collective alongside beatmakers Shlohmo and Groundislava and dropped out of university at NYU to focus on music, eager to capitalise on gig offers after drawing attention online for his tracks—including a mesmerising, massive 2012 remix of Kanye West’s “Mercy” made with fellow L.A. producer Salva. Always versatile, he’s teamed with R&B singers and street rappers alike on subsequent remixes and EPs while exploring all shades of catharsis on his solo albums, including 2014’s VOID and 2018’s NOVA. “It’s me opening up,” he told Apple Music about the latter album, in which he crosses glistening hooks from the heavens with bass drops that could sink a submarine.