Mochakk is the stage name of Brazilian DJ and music producer Pedro Luís Nunes Maia, a representative of the new generation of Brazil’s electronic music scene who gained international recognition through a blend of house, tech house, funk, disco, hip-hop, and club music built around a strong rhythmic foundation. In his case, the image of an energetic DJ behind the decks became closely connected with his production work: global recognition initially came through viral performance videos, but it was sustained by his own releases, appearances at DC-10, Circoloco, Coachella, Time Warp, and Sónar, and later by the development of his own Mochakk Calling event series, record labels, and the OBLIQO club in Brazil.
Pedro Maia was born on September 21, 1999, in Sorocaba, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The musical environment of his childhood was considerably broader than the genres later associated with Mochakk: his family listened to funk, disco, rock, and blues, while Pedro himself was drawn to skateboarding and hip-hop culture. According to the artist’s official biography, before moving into electronic music he started out as a beatmaker.
Hip-hop, skateboarding, and his first DJ performances
Maia became interested in making music while still in his teens. He experimented with recreating rhythms from his favorite hip-hop tracks and became seriously interested in electronic music at around the age of fourteen or fifteen. An important role was played by his friendship with Cesar Nardini, who organized parties for teenagers at a club near Pedro’s school in Sorocaba. Maia initially helped sell tickets, then gained access to the club’s equipment for practice and gradually began performing at the same events. Nardini became one of the people who helped him learn the fundamentals of DJing.
At that stage, music was not yet his only professional plan. After moving to São Paulo, Maia enrolled in fashion studies, but nightlife and his own work with sound gradually became the center of his life. He left his original course of study and focused on music production. His connection with fashion never disappeared, however, and later became a noticeable part of Mochakk’s visual aesthetic, from clothing and event design to his own design projects.
The name Mochakk itself also came from Pedro’s interests beyond music. According to a biographical interview with Mixmag, the name combines an association with mocha coffee and Chaac, the rain and storm deity of Maya mythology. A stage persona gradually formed around that name as well: expressive, physically animated, and visibly different from the image of a DJ standing almost motionless behind the equipment.
The Brazilian scene before the international breakthrough
Before appearing at major international festivals, Mochakk spent several years developing within Brazil’s club scene. His early catalog took shape gradually, with releases from this period including So Many People, the HAAS collaboration Caribbean Queen, Inflación, and other tracks. These recordings already revealed an approach that would later become characteristic of his better-known music: a heavy rhythmic foundation, short vocal fragments, extensive use of samples, and a primary focus on the track’s function on the dance floor.
Together with Cesar Nardini and other friends, Maia also developed Dogghäuz Records. For Mochakk, the project became more than simply a platform for releasing his own music: he saw the label as an opportunity to shape a catalog independently and support Brazilian producers whose work he found interesting. Dogghäuz later became one of the lasting connections between his international career and the scene from which he emerged.
2022: Da Fonk and the international breakthrough
Mochakk’s audience expanded rapidly in 2022. A clip from one of his performances, in which the DJ moves energetically behind the decks to British producer PAWSA’s Roll Play, spread widely on TikTok and other social media platforms. The video became an effective visual expression of what was already happening in his sets: Maia did not merely switch tracks, but physically illustrated rhythmic changes, pauses, and accents with his body. The viral effect significantly accelerated international interest in his name.
That success also coincided with an important period in his discography. In April 2022, Chris Lake’s Black Book Records released False Need, and on July 1, Nervous Records issued Da Fonk featuring vocals by Joni. The latter became one of Mochakk’s most recognizable recordings and helped redirect attention from his social media presence toward his club productions themselves.
During the same period, Maia entered the international touring circuit on a genuinely major scale for the first time. In 2022, he made his debut at Ibiza’s legendary DC-10 as part of Circoloco. His relationship with the series soon developed into regular appearances, and Mochakk later became a Circoloco resident. For an artist who had grown out of a regional Brazilian scene, DC-10 became one of the clearest signs of his transition to the international club level.
Why Mochakk’s sets became so recognizable
Mochakk’s popularity cannot be explained solely by his physical energy behind the decks. His DJ approach is built on a relatively broad musical foundation. His sets can move between classic house, tech house, more industrial forms of techno, disco, funk, hip-hop, and Brazilian music. Maia himself has emphasized that he does not want to become an artist associated with one strictly defined sound: for him, part of a DJ’s role is to introduce audiences to music they do not yet know.
At the same time, his selections share a common sonic character. Mochakk favors dense, textured rhythms, pronounced claps, rougher timbres, and tracks in which the groove is felt physically. Even when moving from house into techno or more melodic material, he aims to preserve the weight of the drums and the internal motion of the composition. This approach distinguishes him from more uniform forms of festival tech house built around nearly identical build-ups and drops.
Jealous and collaboration with Circoloco Records
Another major recording was Jealous, released in 2023 on Circoloco Records. The track uses material from Dreamin' by American singer Loleatta Holloway, reshaped into a driving house structure. If Da Fonk marked Mochakk’s international breakthrough as a producer, Jealous tied his name even more closely to the contemporary Ibiza scene and to Circoloco itself.
During the same period, his catalog continued to expand in different directions. Together with Brazilian duo Breaking Beattz, he recorded Secret for Musical Freedom, while with Fernanda Ouro he created NO8DO, released by Cercle Records. Alongside his original productions, Mochakk began receiving commissions to reinterpret other artists’ material, producing remixes of Express Yourself by Diplo and Nicky Da B, Cosmic Witch by Louie Vega and Anané, and Superstylin' by Groove Armada.
Circoloco, Coachella, and a global touring career
Following his breakthrough, Mochakk quickly appeared on the lineups of clubs and festivals representing different parts of the international electronic scene. He performed at Coachella, Time Warp, Primavera Sound, Sónar, and other major events while continuing to play regularly at DC-10. Unlike artists who built their popularity primarily through streaming hits, his international career developed around constant DJ touring and his ability to work with very different types of dance floors, from intimate clubs to festival stages.
A particularly notable performance came for Cercle at Plaza de España in Seville. The venue hosted around five thousand spectators, while the recorded set later attracted a multimillion-strong online audience. Mochakk also subsequently performed alongside Disclosure at Cercle Festival. These projects strengthened his reputation not only as a club selector, but also as an artist whose performances translate effectively into large-scale visual formats.
Mochakk Calling
Rather than limiting himself to appearances on other promoters’ lineups, Maia began developing his own event series, Mochakk Calling. The first event under the name took place in 2023 at The Shrine in Los Angeles, after which the format expanded to New York, Miami, São Paulo, Lisbon, and other cities. Mochakk and his team work directly on the concept, visual design, venue selection, and artist lineups.
The visual identity of Mochakk Calling revolves around telephone imagery, industrial aesthetics, and big-city motifs. For Maia, this is an extension of São Paulo’s influence — a metropolis he describes as a space filled with multiple parallel subcultures and constantly colliding ideas. Over time, Mochakk Calling grew from a series of individual parties into a full-fledged international brand, and in 2025 it adopted its own two-day festival format in Malta.
Locomotiva Ibiza 2099
In 2024, Mochakk’s relationship with Circoloco Records received its most ambitious studio expression in the two-part project Locomotiva Ibiza 2099. Locomotiva Ibiza 2099 I was released on July 26 and included the title collaboration with Polish producer VTSS, the track The Line, and a dub version of the title track. Here, Mochakk noticeably expanded beyond the familiar dance-floor tech house formula, using more spacious arrangements, his own vocals, and less predictable club structures.
The second part, Locomotiva Ibiza 2099 II, arrived on September 6, 2024. It included two versions of No Boys Allowed featuring Canadian rapper Tommy Genesis, as well as Estribeira, created with Brazilian producer Artisian. The two-part release revealed a broader range in Mochakk’s production, moving from direct club grooves to material in which rap, electronic music, and Brazilian rhythmic ideas coexist within a single concept.
OBLIQO — his own club in Sorocaba
The release date of the second part of Locomotiva Ibiza 2099 coincided with another major project for Maia. On September 6, 2024, he opened the OBLIQO club and cultural space in his hometown of Sorocaba. From the beginning, its concept was broader than that of a conventional nightclub: alongside parties, the venue was designed to host educational events, workshops, and a gallery dedicated to the history of electronic music.
For Mochakk, OBLIQO became a practical way of reinvesting the attention he had gained outside Brazil back into his local scene. Young Brazilian artists occupy a specific place in the club’s programming, and for the venue’s first anniversary a festival was organized in which one stage was dedicated entirely to musicians who had distinguished themselves during OBLIQO’s first year of operation.
From The Stars and collaboration with Ninja Tune
In February 2025, Mochakk made his debut on British label Ninja Tune with the two-track EP From The Stars. The title track uses material from Messages From The Stars by The RAH Band, combining early-1980s disco heritage with a contemporary house groove. The second track, Maria, had already been familiar to fans from his 2023 Cercle set and represents another side of his production language — more minimalist and more closely connected with British club aesthetics.
The contrast between these two tracks demonstrates particularly well why Mochakk cannot be reduced to tech house alone. His productions may be built around a disco sample, a rap vocal phrase, Brazilian percussion, classic house, or British bass traditions while still being designed for use in a DJ set. In his production work, he treats the history of dance music more as material to be reshaped than as a collection of stylistic references.
Legumes, PinkPantheress, and further experimentation
After From The Stars, the producer continued moving away from the expectation that each new release should repeat the formula of Da Fonk or Jealous. In 2025, he released Legumes with British rapper Kwengface, combining Mochakk’s club production with a British rap delivery. During the same period, he participated in PinkPantheress’s Noises + Mochakk project, continuing his exploration of the meeting point between electronic music, contemporary British pop, and rap.
In 2026, Mochakk’s catalog expanded with the official See-Line Woman (Mochakk Mix), a new club reinterpretation of Nina Simone’s recording released by Verve Records. Working with one of Simone’s best-known songs continued the producer’s long-standing interest in transforming older musical material: rather than simply modernizing the original, he used its voice and character as the foundation for a contemporary dance interpretation.
Dogghäuz, MOTRAXX, and support for Brazilian producers
As his own career expanded, Maia increasingly used record labels as curatorial tools. Dogghäuz developed together with his friends and collaborators, while another project, MOTRAXX, launched a series of compilations featuring music from young Brazilian artists after its relaunch. MOTRAXX Volume 1 appeared in late 2025, followed by further editions.
By mid-2026, the series had reached MOTRAXX Volume 4, featuring QUANT, Pricila Diaz, Qüist, Coppola, Jay Mariani, Bora Uzer, and PANNA. Mochakk’s role therefore gradually expanded from DJ and producer of his own tracks into that of a curator using his international audience to promote a new generation of Brazilian club music.
Selected Mochakk discography
Mochakk does not have a traditional album-based discography: his catalog consists primarily of singles, EPs, collaborations, and remixes, reflecting the club-oriented model of his career. Key releases include:
- So Many People — 2020;
- Caribbean Queen — with HAAS, 2020;
- Inflación — 2021;
- False Need — 2022, Black Book Records;
- Da Fonk — feat. Joni, 2022, Nervous Records;
- Respirando — 2022;
- Jealous — 2023, Circoloco Records;
- Secret — with Breaking Beattz, 2023, Musical Freedom;
- NO8DO — with Fernanda Ouro, 2023, Cercle Records;
- Locomotiva Ibiza 2099 I — EP, 2024, Circoloco Records;
- Locomotiva Ibiza 2099 II — EP, 2024, Circoloco Records;
- From The Stars — EP, 2025, Ninja Tune;
- Legumes — with Kwengface, 2025;
- See-Line Woman (Mochakk Mix) — Nina Simone & Mochakk, 2026, Verve Records.
Among Mochakk’s notable remixes are Express Yourself by Diplo and Nicky Da B, Cosmic Witch by Louie Vega and Anané, Superstylin' by Groove Armada, Rizzla by The Martinez Brothers and GORDO, Lost In Space by Foster the People, and a rework of Finally by Kings of Tomorrow and Julie McKnight, created together with Dogghäuz members Cesar Nardini and Jay Mariani.
Mochakk’s musical style and significance
House lies at the foundation of Mochakk’s music, but his approach was shaped by a much broader cultural context. Hip-hop taught him to treat samples and drums as central elements of a composition, skate culture influenced his visual independence, disco and funk provided material for groove, and his experience within the Brazilian scene gave him freedom in relation to genre boundaries. As a result, one release may sound like hard-edged tech house, another may be built around a disco sample, while the next may intersect with rap or more experimental electronic music.
His stage presence undoubtedly played a major role in the rapid spread of Mochakk’s name, but on its own it would hardly have been enough to sustain a long-term international career. The viral videos were followed by releases on Nervous Records, Black Book Records, Circoloco Records, Cercle Records, and Ninja Tune, a Circoloco residency, his own events, and infrastructure projects in Brazil. Together, these developments transformed an initial internet breakthrough into a full-fledged career as a club artist and producer.
Mochakk represents a generation of DJs for whom the boundary between a local scene and the international market has become far less rigid. His story began with teenage parties in Sorocaba, yet an important part of his later development has remained his desire to support that same environment through Dogghäuz, MOTRAXX, and OBLIQO. The most significant aspect of his career lies in this combination of club craft, production curiosity, and self-built cultural infrastructure: Mochakk is not simply an artist working within a popular genre, but someone building an independent ecosystem around his music.
