Kygo
Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll (born 11 September 1991), known professionally as Kygo (Norwegian: [ˈkỳːɡuː]), is a Norwegian DJ and record producer. He garnered international attention with his December 2013 remix of the track "I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran[6] and his December 2014 single "Firestone" (featuring Conrad Sewell).[7][8] In late 2015, he reached 1 billion streams on Spotify faster than any other artist, and by June 2016, he had reached 2 billion streams.[9]
For the radio station in Denver, see KYGO-FM.
Kygo
Kygo has since released several singles, such as "Stole the Show", "Here for You", and "Stay" in 2015, "It Ain't Me" collaborating with Selena Gomez in 2017 and a 2019 remix of "Higher Love" performed by Whitney Houston, all of which have debuted on several international charts. His debut album, Cloud Nine, was released on 13 May 2016.[10]
Kygo became the first house music producer to perform at an Olympics closing ceremony in August 2016 at the 2016 Rio Olympics.[11] In March 2018, Billboard ranked Kygo 3rd on its 2018 ranking of dance musicians titled Billboard Dance 100.[12] The same year, he was ranked 32 on DJ Mag's top 100 DJs of the world, and in October 2019 he was ranked 42.
Kygo's stage name is derived from the first two letters of his first and last names, generated during his use of Itslearning.[13]
Early life[edit]
Kygo was born on 11 September 1991 in Singapore to Norwegian parents and raised in Bergen.[14][15] He is the son of Kjersti Gjerde, a dentist in Norway, and Lars Gørvell-Dahll, who was working abroad in the maritime industry.[16][17] He has an older stepbrother Mads, two older sisters Johanne and Jenny, and a younger half-brother Sondre.[14][17] Throughout his childhood, he lived and travelled with his family in Brazil, Japan, Kenya and Egypt.[14]
Kygo started taking piano lessons at the age of six and considers himself more of a pianist than a disc jockey.[18] He stopped when he was 15 or 16 and started producing music with Logic Studio and a MIDI keyboard while watching several tutorials on YouTube.[19] When he decided to pursue music full-time, he was halfway through a degree in business and finance at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland.[18] He has cited Swedish DJ Avicii as his main inspiration.[20]
Personal life[edit]
Kygo is a fan of Manchester United, and his favourite player was Juan Mata.[55] He is also a fan of Formula 1 and performed a concert at the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix. He performed at other races recently, the 2021 Mexican Grand Prix and the inaugural 2022 Miami Grand Prix.
Stage name[edit]
His stage name Kygo can be pronounced as (Norwegian pronunciation: [kyːɡuː])[56] for Norwegian speakers and /ˈkaɪɡoʊ/[56] for English speakers. Both pronunciations can be used interchangeably. Kyrre got the idea for his stage name through a username he received in high school for the digital learning platform itslearning.[57] The service used parts of his name to create a nickname, thereof "Ky-" standing for the first two letters in his given name "Kyrre" and "-go" for the first two letters in his surname "Gørvell-Dahll". The letter ø is usually replaced with letter o in computing. In an interview with newspaper Fanaposten, Kyrre quoted; "Kygo [as an artist name] has been absolutely perfect. It is very easy to say, in both Norwegian and English. [And] I have no need to change the artist name [in the future]".[57]
Philanthropy[edit]
In June 2016 NRK said that Kygo is "giving 50 000 USD [...] of the profits [of his sold-out festival on 20 August]" to Frank Mugisha; Kygo was quoted: "Everyone should be permitted to live with one's sexual orientation. That is not the situation in Uganda and quite a few other countries across the world".[58]