DJ Hol Up expands Afrobeats footprints with mixtapes

Steve Dede 07:00 - 06 May 2020

DJ Hol Up (Instagram)

Music artistes continue to get credit for the rapid expansion of African hip hop music culture popularly christened Afrobeats but it is Disc Jockeys such as US-based DJ Hol Up who are the unsung heroes of the genre.

DJ Hol Up whose real name is Derek Chizaram Moses has racked up an aggregate of over 16 million streams on Sound cloud alone to his monthly Afrobeats Update mixtapes.

His trending mixtapes have been running for the past for years. One his mixes entitled Dance Hall Party Mix (2017 to 2018) boasts of eight million views.

According to the turntable maven, the reception for the Afrobeats music culture is getting more followership from outside non-African communities in the Diaspora. To back up his claims, the Communications graduate of the University of Albany shared analytics insights that revealed the United States and United Kingdom as the biggest listeners to his music.

"My Afrobeats Mixtape has taken me to more places than I could ever imagine. An Artiste Manager once told me that when he lived in Mozambique, they used to always play my mixes at parties. That was memorable for me,” DJ Hol Up reveals.

Recalling his journey to the turntable, DJ Hol Up revealed, “I never wanted to pursue DJ as career; I saw it as just a hobby. I always had a good ear for music and wanted to be a manager or A&R. But one day I made an Afrobeats mix and decided to post it on Soundcloud and it blew up. From there, I decided to try to perfect my craft and see how far I can go as a DJ.”

For his latest mixtape for the month of May, the New York-born Nigerian talent curates eye-catching list of 21 artistes featuring rising artiste, Ike Chuks as his cover artist. Ike had only recently dropped his EP entitled 'Igbotic'.

DJ Hol Up proves that he has his pulse on the hottest Africa jams with his array of club bangers in his latest installment of Afrobeat Update. On the playlist are artistes from Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.

Afrobeat Update for May 2020 include songs by Tekno (Kata), Mayorkun (Of Lagos), Reekardo Banks (Options), Joe Boy (Call Me), Buju (Lenu remix featuring Burna Boy) and Rexxie (Marlian Riddim). Others in the 21 track compilation include Scorpion King’s Nguwe, Dremo’s Mable (featuring Davido) and 1da Banton’s Foreigner among others.