History of STEVE AOKI

Steve Aoki (born November 30, 1977) is an American electro house musician, record producer and the founder of Dim Mak Records.

Early life

Steve Aoki was born in Miami and grew up in Newport Beach, California. He graduated from Newport Harbor High School in 1995; he was a star player on the varsity Badminton team. He is the third child of Rocky Aoki and Chizuru Kobayashi. His father was a former Japanese Olympic wrestler who also founded the restaurant chain Benihana. He has two older siblings, sister Kana (who is now known as "Grace"), and brother Kevin (owner of Doraku Sushi restaurant). He also has three half-siblings, all of whom are younger: half-brother Kyle and half-sisters Echo, and Devon, the model. As a child, Steve lived with his grandfather^{[citation needed]}, his mother, and his two older siblings.
Aoki attended the University of California, Santa Barbara and graduated with two B.A.s; one in Women's Studies and the other in Sociology. In college, he produced do-it-yourself records and ran underground concerts out of his Biko room in the Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative , which was located in Isla Vista, a section of residential land adjacent to UCSB. As a concert venue, the apartment became known as The Pickle Patch. By his early 20s, Aoki had built his own record label, which he named Dim Mak after his childhood hero, Bruce Lee. He has also been in numerous bands, including This Machine Kills, which released an album on Ebullition Records, Esperanza, and The Fire Next Time.
His father, Rocky, once said that he had 'three kids from three different women at exactly the same time'. He found out about the third child with the third woman when he was sued for paternity. In 2005, Rocky sued four of his children (Grace, Kevin, Kyle, and Echo) for an alleged attempt to take control of the companies he founded, which, at the time, had an estimated value between US $60 million and $100 million. Steve and his younger half-sister, Devon, were not named in the suit.

Musical career

Aoki founded his own label, Dim Mak Records, in 1996. The label has released music by other Fidget house artists such as MSTRKRFT, The Bloody Beetroots, Klaxons, Scanners, Whitey, Mystery Jets and Mustard Pimp. Aoki is also a club promoter and DJ. He has also teamed up with Blake Miller of the LA -based band Moving Units to produce remixes. The duo of Miller and Aoki work under the moniker Weird Science.
Aoki's debut album, Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles was released in January 2008 ^[6]. He also had an Essential Mix that aired on BBC Radio 1 on August 2, 2008.
He has remixed many artists and bands, including Drake, Lenny Kravitz, Bloc Party, Snoop Dogg, Robin Thicke, S.P.A., Kid Cudi, Chester French and Peaches.
He remixed the track "When The Wind Blows" that features on the UK edition of The All-American Rejects' 2008 album When The World Comes Down.
On November 10, 2009 he released a remix for Drake's song "Forever". The song features Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wanye, and Eminem. The track made it to the top of Hype Machine's chart in December 2009.
In March 2010 Aoki released "I'm In The House", a collaboration with Zuper Blahq—alter-ego of Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am. The song charted at #29 in the UK Singles Chart in its first week of release.
Producer-songwriter Lucas Secon confirmed in a May 2010 interview with HitQuarters that he and Rivers Cuomo had recently worked with Aoki on a single.

Business ventures

The Dim Mak Collection clothing line was launched in 2006. A new fashion range designed by Steve and his sister Devon Aoki was released in 2009. They've partnered with the founders/owners of Ksubi, George Garrow and Dan Single to release this range together. "We've been putting it together for two years, from the very early stages." Aoki told. Also with Dan Single and George Garrow, Ksubi will be partnering up and creating a Dim Mak sunglass line that will drop in 2009 as well.
Aoki and friend Greger, the owner of WeSC, came up with the idea together to do the "Aoki headphones." They used different shades of green, because that was Aoki's favorite color at the time.Each season Aoki plans to design new headphones for WeSC. Aoki also is endorsed by KR3W Apparel and Supra Footwear, where he develops and designs an entire range of clothing and shoes for both companies under his name.
Aoki is a co-owner in a Korean BBQ restaurant Shin alongside Danny Masterson, Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, Mark Ronson, Laura Prepon, Jerry Butler, among others. He also co-owned a management company called Deckstar with DJ AM along with their managers and Paul Rosenberg. Underneath the Deckstar Management division, Dim Mak management has been formed to manage some of the label's artists and other DJs.
In November 2009 created his own magazine titled "Aoki" through a celebrity magazine publishing company called MYMAG.