By Adam Stewart and Akshay Bhansali
Sharam Tayebi, one half of the veteran progressive house music duo Deep Dish, is revved up. Sitting poolside at the Raleigh Hotel in Miami at the Winter Music Conference, he told us he has an auto-inspired series of releases and upcoming tour approaching.
"I have three EPs coming out in the next four or five months that are going to lead up to new album," he said. "The whole concept is around cars — Le Mans racing and American muscle cars. I have Raul Boesel, who is an ex professional race car driver, and he's a DJ and now a very good friend. So we're taking the idea of cars and racing and putting this into the idea of nightlife."
Hailing from our Washington, D.C., Sharam and his Deep Dish partner Dubfire have been tearing up dance floors and remixing some of music's biggest names for nearly 20 years. Taking a hiatus from his Grammy Award-winning group, Sharam's Speed album follows the wildly successful release Get Wild, which featured a series of collaborations with top-tier artists like Diddy, Daniel Bedingfield, Kid Cudi, as well as underground club anthem, “Be The Change” featuring Anousheh Khalili.
“What’s funny about that record, is that it wasn’t supposed to be a single. I only gave it to like three people, because they were begging me for it, and somehow it found a life of its own,” the DC dj tells us. “It became one of those underground things that blew up!”
While his popular collaborations have made him a crossover star, Sharam's heart remains underground, and the current state of dance music excites him more than it ever has in his long career. "In America especially, [dance] has been the bastard child of music," Sharam said. "Everybody knew it existed, people bought the compilations, they knew the artists, but it never really got coverage. Now I think what's happening with David Guetta and Lady Gaga has broadened the whole horizon. I'm really happy it's finally here. We broke the ceiling!"
To hear more of Sharam's addictive sound, click on the Beatport player below and be sure to keep checking in with MTV News for more of the hot dance action!
