Marshmello during a gig.Electronic dance music creators have a strange relationship with masks and anonymity. Be it Canadian EDM producer Joel Zimmerman aka Deadmau5 who wears a mouse head or French duo Daft Punk, who broke on to the scene in the ’90s with their heads enclosed in futuristic helmets — several creators of dance music have used anonymity to spawn mystery around them. In 2015, an American DJ identifying himself with pseudonym Marshmello appeared on the scene trying to play the same trick, and it worked. He garnered great amount of publicity in a very short time for using bold new, exotic sounds and for his cute looking face: a giant marshmallow looking mask containing two cartoon eyes and a cartoon mouth.
Over the last four years, Marshmello has created many hit dance numbers and music videos by collaborating with some of the biggest contemporary artists including Wolves with Selena Gomez, Happier with Mastille and Friends with Anne Marie.
Although, till today, Marshmello hasn’t confirmed his true identity, Forbes magazine had in March 2017 revealed that he was none other than 26-year-old Chris Comstock, who earlier tried EDM under another pseudonym — Dotcom. The magazine used financial trail of his production company and an accidentally posted selfie on Instagram by one of his friends that showed the unmasked youth reflected in the mirror to back its claim.
Nevertheless, the now pseudo-anonymous artiste is one of the five highest earning DJs internationally and enjoys great popularity across the world, even in India, where he is presently touring as part of Vh1 Supersonic 2019. He is scheduled to perform in Pune on February 17 apart from gigs in Delhi and Hyderabad.
Last week, he released Biba, his first Hindi number featuring music director Pritam, Indo-Kiwi singer Shirley Setia and a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan. The video of the romantic dance number is a tribute to Bollywood and Khan with Marshmello and Setia creating iconic scenes from his films such as Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Om Shanti Om. Talking about his India tour, Marshmello says the aim of Biba was to give his Indian fans their own dance anthem.
“India is so special to me. This is my third time here and I love it even more each time I come back. That’s why I wanted to make this trip even more special and give my fans here their own anthem. It was great to work with Pritam over the last few months and give the Mellogang Biba,” said the artist adding that he was “10,00,000 per cent” excited to perform for his Indian fans at the upcoming events and was planning “something special” for them.
The sixth edition of Vh1 Supersonic will be held on February 16-17 at Mahalaxmi Lawns, Nagar Road, Pune.
