Ralf GUM isone of the most respected figures in the house music scene, called a rolemodel, pioneer, legend and global House Music superstar by others, while hissecret is simply that he kept passionate about real music at all times. Since hisDJ career started in 1990 Ralf always stayed true to his passion for cool anddiverse house music and got renown for his exceptional productions and DJ-sets.Harmony & Soul & Groove – are the main ingredients, but just someaspects of Ralf’s typical deep sound. With an instinctive feeling for the rightvibe, he convincingly performed all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South-and North America as well as Africa.

Ralf GUM isproducing music since 1993 and worked with notable artists such as CaronWheeler, Inaya Day, Beady Belle, Robert Owens, Kenny Bobien, Michael Procter,Wunmi, Concha Buika or the fascinating Monique Bingham. He released on andremixed for top house labels like Defected, Papa, Peppermint Jam, Tommy Boy,Compose, Knee Deep, Slip’n’Slide, Mn2S and major labels such as Sony Music,WEA, Urban. Ralf has released numerous well-known songs, amongst them thesoulful hit of 2008 “Kissing Strangers” (released on GOGO Music) featuringMonique Bingham, which was a bestseller in its genre. Thus it scored the number1 in the “Top 100 Singles 2008” and the “biggest house track 2008” in the annualchart of the ultra-credible Traxsource download-shop. Alone in 2009 Ralf’s works made it 4 times to the top spot in the Traxsource sales chart, one oft hem being his first remix-work for Defected’s “LoveIs What You Need”. But his success of course isn’t limited to theTraxsource charts. He had various #1 download-chart positions on Clickgroove, madeit to the Top 10 sales of many other download shops and his single “Little W.12th St.” was amongst the 10 best selling house-songs of the year onthe Japanese download-site Wasabeat in 2009. In December 2012 Ralf scored with“Take Me To My Love” a #1 hit in South Africa’s official mediacharts. His records are constantly receiving airplay and can be found incountless playlists of major radio stations including e.g. UK’s “BBC 1”, France’s“Radio FG” or South Africa’s“Metro FM”. Moreover he gained number one positions in the playlists SouthAfrica’s “YFM’s Urban Top 40” and Botswana’s Yarona Mascom Charts where hestayed for 4 weeks with “Complicated feat. Kafele” in May 2010. Further highly acclaimedhit records of Ralf include “All This Love For You” (GOGO Music) featuringDiamondancer, “Ponle Tumbao” (Tommy Boy / Flamingo Discos / Milk & Sugar),"Fly Free" feat. Robert Owens (GOGO Music). Ralf GUM’s productions becamea worldwide renown trademark in the house scene and UK’S TTR magazine called Ralf “one of Germany’s finest” already in 2005.

But Ralf not only convinces as a producer, as well his DJ-sets have helped him buildingup his reputation as a forward thinking tastemaker influencing many fellows. Duringhis career he had various residencies in South-Germany including the"Airport" (Wuerzburg /Germany),which was the living-room for his interpretation of house for more than 11years. During more than a decade he captured the crowd with his sessions everyFriday night and hosted other top artists like DJ Gregory, Martin Solveig,Lenny Fontana or Frankie Feliciano, to name just a few. From 2002 till 2007Ralf was hosting a bi-weekly event at "Studio-Lounge" (Wuerzburg, Germany)which was called “the deepest and most soulful party of Germany” by the SubcultureMagazine. Since end of 2006 Ralf can be found regularly at Climax in Stuttgart (Germany). Next to his residencies Ralf looks back on a tight DJ schedule since many years.

In autumn 2008 Ralf toured South Africa for the first time with great response and was the first German house DJ whowas booked in Botswana and Swaziland. In 2009 followed 2 extensive South Africa tours, including an invitation to the Southern African Music conference by DJU and the department of Arts and Culture where Ralf conducted various work shops.In 2010 and 2011 Ralf was selected again as international panellist for theannual Southern African Music Conference and was teaching about music-production,label business, DJ-ing and more. In 2012 Ralf emigrated from his homeland of Germany to the world's current hot-bed forSoulful House Music, South Africa, but continues steadily to travel andplay at some of the best events around the world. These include e.g. the “SouthportWeekender” (Southport, UK), “Nature One” (Germany), “Sundaze” (Jakarta,Indonesia), “Dancevalley”(Amsterdam, Netherlands), “Mo’Vibes” (Munich, Germany) or the “VodacomUnlimited Festival” (Orlando Stadium, Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa). He gracedthe decks at many of the best clubs around the world including “360” (Dubai,UAE), “El Devino” (Ibiza, Spain), “Amika” (Miami, USA), “The Room” (Tokyo,Japan), “ECU / Echoes” (Rimini, Italy), “Garito Café” (Palma de Mallorca,Spain), “Disco” (Sao Paulo, Brasil), “Volksgarten” (Vienna, Austria), “House 22”(Pretoria, South Africa), “Cocoon” (Frankfurt, Germany) and hundreds others.Alone in 2012 he played almost 200 DJ gigs.

Ralf GUM embarked on the development of his own record label GOGO Music in 2001. Withstrong ambitions and his love for music being the driving force, GOGO Music hasbecome Germany’s,if not one of world’s most reputable soulful house music labels. Late 2005 GOGOMusic was called “one of the hottest imprints around” by UK ’s leading magazine “Blues & Soul” and Germany’s“Subculture” wrote that “GOGO Music is the prime German house label”. In April2009 Chicago’s best house music publication “5 Magazine” stated, that “GOGOMusic has become synonymous with the best DeepHouse produced in Europe” and 2010 UK’s magazine “SoulM8” certified that “GOGOMusic is one of Germany’s best independent labels”. With his label-work Ralfhas been pivotal for the international breakthrough of artists like Raw ArtisticSoul or Black Coffee and the discovery of many other outstanding talents.

In 2003 Ralf initiated the GOGO Music radio-show. What began as a monthly showtransmitted on one internet-radio rapidly became one of the most popularbroadcasts within the house community and beyond. Since early 2006 the radioshow is done on a weekly basis and is to date aired by more than 50 FM- andinternet-stations around the globe. The GOGO Music radio show residents RalfGUM, Ben Moss and MAQman plus few selected guests are presenting hebdomadalnothing but the finest house music in a pure one hour DJ mix.

Next to hisRalf GUM productions, Ralf started two further projects. “SUGAR BEAT”, which isa collaboration with drummer Steffen Meder and developed out of their unique live performance: “Jazzy Live Drums &Uplifting Spinning”. With SUGAR BEAT’s irresistible sound a new broken beat styleis being created. After some sweet remixes on GOGO Music, in 2006 the first ownproductions have been released on the “GOGO Music Spring Collection 06”. Togetherwith soul-mate Ben Moss, Ralf joined forces and started“4 Ears”. Their first release 'Can't Be Without You' was signed to Canadiandeep house label Iwanai Music and hit immediately the Traxsource Top 10.

During his career Ralf had the pleasure to compile and mix various CD-Compilations. Theseinclude “Arrival Vol. I” in 2004, a double Mix-CD together with Howard Donald (offamous pop-group Take That), for which they toured together all over Germany.As well in 2004 Ralf’s compilation “Studio – the finest in lounge and housemusic”, was released and selected as CD of the month in the December edition ofGermany’s“Raveline” magazine. In February 2005 the first GOGO Music label-compilation“GO!” including highlights of the first 3 years label work came out. It wascalled the best compilation of the year by UK ’S “TTR” magazine. In October2006 the second part “GO!!” hit the market and achieved likewise attention andsuccess as the first edition.

In 2006Ralf GUM held his first GOGO Music Winter Music Conference event in Miami with great success.With an impressive line-up including e.g. Kenny Dixon Jr aka Moodyman, Theo Parrish, MarkusEnochson, Glenn Underground plus the GOGO Music DJs, the party went down in astorm and was one of the most talked about at the conference. 2007 saw GOGOMusic teaming up with Atal Music and Bubble Soul for a joint WMC event at HotelVictor, called “Yes Please”. With an equally great line-up including e.g. JamieLewis, Raw Artistic Soul and many others, it became a great success and thekick-off for further “Yes Please” parties: The critical acclaimed WMC event in2008 at Sagamore and the ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event) 2008 event at Mansion.More highlights worth to adduce are Ralf’s appearance at MTV’s “Battle of theDJs” in April 2003 and several invitations to the You.FM Clubnight, a showdedicated to electronic music and club culture, which was transmitted on theGerman national radio-and TV-station Hessischer Rundfunk (2 times in 2005, onetime in 2006, 2007 and 2009).

In 2008 Ralf GUMunveiled his long awaited debut masterpiece album titled “Uniting Music” on hislabel GOGO Music. Composing a continuous piece of music, seamless and blendedinto a luscious texture of soulful-, afro-and latin-house and jazz inspiredgrooves, Ralf showcased his ability to create wonderful original songs. Witheach song intertwining with another, he was pushing the boundaries well beyondthe traditional dj mix sense! Almost seeming like one beautiful track the wholealbum contained it all: reallypretty dreamy tracks, some real grooving’ live sounding deals and some latenight slices of hypnotic house, too. The album received great plaudit worldwide, as for exampleUK’s “M8” Magazine called the CD „simply one of the best albums of the year” andthe German 3Sat TV show “Kulturzeit” wrote on its web-site that “no singlesecond of the album bores”. “Uniting Music” was released by Rambling Records in Japan and by Soul Candi in South Africa, too.

2012 Ralf GUM released his second long-player titled“Never Leaves You” including “Take Me To My Love” which has become the biggestHouse Anthem in South Africa that year. It’s just one of the many highlights on Ralf’s album, a sort ofvocal house dream team, which brought together the heavenly tonsils of KennyBobien, Robert Owens, Kafele, Monique Bingham and former Soul II Soul starCaron Wheeler amongst many others. The album not only received critical acclaimglobally, including Blues & Soul Magazine saying “in the talented hands ofRalf that team complimented rather than countered an impressive, truly soulfulcollection of songs and emphatically demonstrates his ability to orchestratesoul-house goodness on the grandest possible scale”, SoulM8 writing “this is head and shoulders above therest of what others call house music", TilllateMagazine stating “this is simply amazing - now go buy it and support thefinest soulful vocal house" and Soul and Jazzand Funk The warning” You’ll ignore it at your peril!",but as well was the bestselling album of the year on Traxsource and reachedGOLD status in South Africa.

Thehallmark of Ralf’s sound is his love for jazzy harmonies coupled with wickedunderground beats. But the distinctive groove isn’t the only reason for Ralf’ssuccess – his passion for all things soulful shines through in all he does.This helps him creating a simply irresistible groove every time he emerges fromthe studio or works the turntables. Due to his successful work in various areasthere is no denying that Ralf GUM has establishedin the top-league of the most prolific dj/producers in the global house scene.

Links:

Label-website: www.GOGO-Music.net

Artist-web-site: www.RalfGUM.com

Facebook-site: facebook.com/Ralf.GUM.GOGO

Twitter: www.twitter.com/RalfGUM

Label Twitter: www.twitter.com/GOGO_Music_1

Youtube: www.youtube.com/RalfGUM

Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/ralf-gum-gogo-music

Instagram: www.instagram.com/GOGO_Music_1

Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/ralfgum

Google+:

Myspace-site: www.myspace.com/RalfGUM