Scooter
Don Diablo is a Dutch DJ, music producer and songwriter whose real name is Don Pepijn Schipper. He was born on 27 February 1980 in Coevorden, the Netherlands. His career began in the 1990s, while international recognition followed after a series of club releases and the subsequent development of his own take on future house. Don Diablo is regarded as one of the key figures of the genre alongside other artists who shaped the new wave of house music in the mid-2010s.
Over the course of his career, he has moved from gabber, hard house, electro and breakbeat toward future house, progressive house and electronic pop music. In addition to his own catalogue, Don Diablo runs the HEXAGON label, hosts the weekly Hexagon Radio show, works with digital and physical art, and since 2025 has released more experimental music under the separate name CONTROL ALT DΞLΞTΞ.
Early career
Don Pepijn Schipper began making music as a teenager. At the age of 15, he signed his first contract to release his own music. His early recordings differed considerably from the future house sound that would later become associated with his name: in the late 1990s, he worked with harder electronic styles including gabber and hard house, before gradually expanding his sound through electro, house, breakbeat and pop elements.
By the early 2000s, Don Diablo was already releasing club singles and working with various electronic projects. In 2003, Casa del Diablo entered the UK Official Dance Singles Chart, where it reached No. 35.
During this period, he also developed his own platform, Sellout Sessions, which was used for releases and related projects.
Life Is a Festival
In 2008, Don Diablo released his debut full-length album, Life Is a Festival. The widespread claim that 2018’s FUTURE was his first album is therefore incorrect.
Life Is a Festival reflected a far more eclectic phase of his work. The music combined house, electro, breakbeat, funk, hip-hop and pop elements, while guest performers included Shystie, Bizzey and Rhymefest. The title track was used as the musical theme for the Dutch film Radeloos.
This early material shows that Don Diablo had already been working at the intersection of club-oriented and song-based electronic music long before future house.
Hooligans and Animale
In 2009, Don Diablo released Hooligans with British artist Example. The single entered the UK Official Dance Singles Chart and reached No. 15.
In 2010, Animale featuring Canadian band Dragonette was released. The song became another notable track from the period in which the producer was gradually moving away from the eclectic electro sound of the previous decade toward more direct club music.
Starlight and a new stage of his career
The 2013–2014 period was particularly important for the direction Don Diablo would take next.
The track Starlight (Could You Be Mine), created with Matt Nash, became one of the first major international club successes of this new phase. Don Diablo later described the track as the point after which his musical direction became significantly clearer.
It was followed by AnyTime and other productions that established Don Diablo’s characteristic mid-2010s sound: a tight house groove, expressive bassline, processed vocal fragments and melodic synthesizers.
This was also the period in which the future house scene was developing around artists such as Tchami, Oliver Heldens and a number of other European producers. By 2015, DJ Mag was already identifying Don Diablo as one of the artists helping define the style.
HEXAGON
In 2015, Don Diablo launched his own label, HEXAGON.
The starting point was his collaborative remix with CID of Alex Adair — Make Me Feel Better. The track reached No. 1 on Beatport’s main chart and gave its name to the new music platform.
HEXAGON gradually developed from a record label into a broader ecosystem encompassing releases, events, an artist community and its own visual identity. Over the years, the platform has released music by RetroVision, CID, King Arthur, Dropgun and other electronic producers.
To mark the project’s tenth anniversary in 2025, Don Diablo introduced the HEXAGON 2.0 concept. He described the new direction with the term NeoNostalgia — a combination of classic house influences and modern electronic sound design. The first release of the new phase was Freek Like Me.
On My Mind and the development of his signature sound
One of the defining recordings of this period was On My Mind, released in 2015.
Don Diablo followed it with a series of tracks that firmly established his position in future house: Chemicals, Tonight, What We Started, Cutting Shapes, Save a Little Love, Momentum and Take Her Place.
Cutting Shapes, released in 2016, became particularly recognisable. The title refers to the shuffle/cutting shapes dance style, which was rapidly growing in popularity on social media and in club culture at the time.
Hexagon Radio
As the label developed, Don Diablo launched his weekly radio show Hexagon Radio.
The programme is dedicated to new electronic music, HEXAGON releases, Don Diablo’s own productions and tracks by other producers. The show continues to air weekly: by summer 2026, the numbering was approaching 600 episodes.
In 2024, Don Diablo marked the 500th episode with a special 90-minute mix of his own edits, bootlegs and unreleased versions. For HEXAGON’s tenth anniversary, DJ Mag reported that the programme was distributed in more than 70 countries.
Hexagon Radio is also part of the Minatrix.FM broadcast schedule.
FUTURE
On 9 February 2018, Don Diablo released FUTURE — his second major studio album after Life Is a Festival. The Deluxe version contains 18 tracks.
By this point, his future-house period was already fully established, making the album a kind of summary of the previous several years.
FUTURE includes Take Her Place with A R I Z O N A, People Say, Head Up with James Newman, Reflections, Killer with Dave Thomas Junior and other tracks.
In the UK, FUTURE reached No. 12 on the Official Dance Albums Chart.
Survive, Brave and pop collaborations
After FUTURE, Don Diablo continued gradually expanding his musical palette toward dance-pop.
In 2018, he released Survive with Emeli Sandé and Gucci Mane. In 2019, he followed it with Brave featuring Jessie J, and later Congratulations with Brando.
In the years that followed, he released Bad with Zak Abel, Thousand Faces with Andy Grammer, Kill Me Better with Imanbek and Trevor Daniel, Tears for Later with Galantis and Hot Air Balloon with AR/CO.
At the same time, Don Diablo continued releasing official remixes. His catalogue includes work on material by Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Justin Bieber, The Chainsmokers, David Guetta and other artists.
FORΞVΞR
On 10 September 2021, Don Diablo released his third studio album, FORΞVΞR. It contains 21 tracks, with an expanded Deluxe Edition released later.
On this album, Don Diablo blends club-oriented electronic music with pop, alternative sounds and vocal collaborations far more extensively than on FUTURE.
The album includes Stay Awake, Sail Away with Au/Ra, Tears for Later with Galantis, Survive with Emeli Sandé and Gucci Mane, Hot Air Balloon with AR/CO, Bad with Zak Abel, Kill Me Better with Imanbek and Trevor Daniel, Into the Unknown and Thousand Faces with Andy Grammer.
According to HEXAGON, the combined number of streams generated by material from FORΞVΞR later exceeded one billion.
Digital art and NFTs
In the early 2020s, Don Diablo significantly expanded his work beyond music and began working regularly with both digital and physical art.
In 2021, he released the NFT artwork DΞSTINATION HΞXAGONIA — a one-hour audiovisual piece created with Paul Snijder. The single edition was sold on SuperRare for 600 ETH, which was worth approximately $1.3 million at the time of sale.
That same year, the work INFINITΞ FUTURΞ was included by Sotheby's in its Natively Digital auction and sold for $927,500.
Another major project, HΞXHIBIT III, combined a digital object with a physical installation. Sotheby's lists the final price of the work as $1.2 million.
Don Diablo’s work was later shown in projects connected with the Venice Biennale, Art Dubai, Art Basel and Moco Museum.
The HEXAGON Foundation created by Don Diablo was initially presented as an initiative to support artists in the NFT and digital-art space. It would therefore be inaccurate to associate the foundation primarily with environmental issues or ocean conservation.
Visual art and HEXAGON Fashion
Visual design has become an independent part of the Don Diablo project. In addition to cover art, concert graphics and digital installations, he develops HEXAGON Fashion.
The brand has released official collaborations with Star Wars / Lucasfilm, as well as collections connected with Netflix and Stranger Things.
As a result, HEXAGON gradually expanded beyond the boundaries of a conventional music label and became a broader identity encompassing music, visual art and design.
DJ Mag Top 100 DJs
Don Diablo first appeared in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs ranking in 2014 at No. 82, rising to No. 30 just one year later.
In 2018, he reached No. 7, and in 2019 achieved his highest position — No. 6. He held the same position in 2020.
In 2024, Don Diablo was ranked No. 15, while in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs 2025 he climbed to No. 13.
Musical style
Don Diablo has changed direction repeatedly throughout his career.
His early work existed between gabber, hard house, breakbeat and electro. By the late 2000s, house had become increasingly important, and from 2013–2014 onward he developed the sound that became closely associated with the rise of future house.
This period is characterised by elastic basslines, house grooves, short vocal phrases and bright synthesizer chords. On the albums FUTURE and FORΞVΞR, these elements were joined by influences from progressive house, electro house and electronic pop music.
Since 2025, Don Diablo has described the new stage of HEXAGON with the term NeoNostalgia — a combination of classic house aesthetics and modern production.
CONTROL ALT DΞLΞTΞ
In 2025, Don Diablo introduced a separate alter ego called CONTROL ALT DΞLΞTΞ.
The project focuses on harder and more experimental club-oriented electronic music, particularly drum & bass. Don Diablo treats it as an independent direction rather than simply another name for his main project.
By 2026, CONTROL ALT DΞLΞTΞ had its own festival appearances, with Don Diablo’s official touring calendar separating performances by the main project from CAD shows.
VΞRSIONS
On 16 January 2026, Don Diablo released VΞRSIONS — a 19-track album built around his own versions, reinterpretations and new treatments of familiar musical themes.
The album includes Day & Nite, Little Lies, Gotta Let U Go, Enjoy the Silence — Don Diablo Version, Jiggy Woogie with Major Lazer and Baby Lawd, Doing Nothin' with Nelly Furtado, a version of Deeper Underground with Jamiroquai, The Way I Are, SexyBack, Freek Like Me, Sound of da Police, Still Cutting Shapes and Future Rain with Tony Ann.
VΞRSIONS differs noticeably from FUTURE and FORΞVΞR: the core concept here is the reinterpretation of familiar musical material through Don Diablo’s contemporary production style.
2024–2026 releases
In 2024, Don Diablo released a large amount of club-oriented material and collaborations. These included Monster with Felix Jaehn, Young Again with Sandro Cavazza, Next to Me with MK and Gaby Gerlis, a new version of Deeper Underground with Jamiroquai, Where Do We Come From with Robbie Williams, SexyBack and Smalltown Boy.
In 2025, he released The Way I Are, Remember Me with Qobra, Freek Like Me, Doing Nothin' with Nelly Furtado, The Devil Works Hard with Tseba, Little Lies, No Signal, Radio Baby, a version of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence and an official remix of The Chemical Brothers — Block Rockin' Beats.
After the release of VΞRSIONS in 2026, he continued the run of singles. His catalogue added 5 Minutes with Pink Sweat$, More Than a Friend with Bipolar Sunshine, Turbo Speed, Go Home With a Stranger with Wiz Khalifa and Chri$tian Gate$, Elephant and Gangsta Lean. The latter was released on 22 July 2026.
Main discography
Studio albums and major album releases:
- Life Is a Festival — 2008
- FUTURE — 2018
- FORΞVΞR — 2021
- VΞRSIONS — 2026.
Key tracks:
- Hooligans — with Example
- Animale — feat. Dragonette
- Starlight (Could You Be Mine) — with Matt Nash
- AnyTime
- On My Mind
- Chemicals
- Cutting Shapes
- What We Started
- Save a Little Love
- Take Her Place — feat. A R I Z O N A
- Survive — feat. Emeli Sandé & Gucci Mane
- Brave — with Jessie J
- Bad — with Zak Abel
- Hot Air Balloon — with AR/CO
- Monster — with Felix Jaehn
- Doing Nothin' — with Nelly Furtado
- Go Home with a Stranger — with Wiz Khalifa and Chri$tian Gate$.
Don Diablo today
Don Diablo continues to develop several directions simultaneously: he releases house and dance music under his main name, curates HEXAGON and Hexagon Radio, works on visual-art projects and develops CONTROL ALT DΞLΞTΞ as a separate platform for more experimental electronic music. In 2025, HEXAGON marked its tenth anniversary and moved into the HEXAGON 2.0 concept, while the release of VΞRSIONS and a new run of singles continued the artist’s discography in 2026.
