Niles Hollowell-Dhar (born October 6, 1988), known professionally as Kshmr (pronounced "Kashmir" and stylized in all caps), is an American songwriter, DJ, music producer, and musician. He was ranked 23rd on ''

DJ Mag ''DJ Magazine'' (also known as ''DJ Mag'') is a British monthly magazine dedicated to electronic dance music and DJs. Founded in 1991, the magazine is adapted for distribution in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, France, Italy, Lat ...

''s 2015 Top 100 DJs poll and was awarded highest new entry for the year. In the same poll he elevated to 12th in 2016 and 2017, and again in 2020. He was ranked 11th in the same poll in 2021; and in 2022 in same poll he ranked 12. In July 2017, he launched Dharma Worldwide, a sublabel of

Spinnin' Records Spinnin' Records is a Dutch electronic music record label founded in 1999 by Eelko van Kooten and Roger de Graaf. In September 2017, Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp. (trade name, d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as ...

. Kshmr performed live at many music festivals like

Coachella Coachella may refer to: * Coachella, California * Coachella Canal, in California * Coachella (festival), an annual music and arts festival in California * "Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind "Coachella – Woodstock In My Mind" is a song by Ame ...

, Tomorrowland, EDC,

Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park ...

and

Sunburn Sunburn is a form of radiation burn that affects living tissue, such as skin, that results from an overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, usually from the Sun. Common symptoms in humans and animals include: red or reddish skin that i ...

Early life

Dev & The Cataracs - The Roxy (7046841417)

Hollowell-Dhar was born in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

. His father is a Kashmiri Hindu who emigrated from India, while his mother is American. He got his stage name from the Indian state of

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

, where his paternal side hails from. His singles "Jammu" and "Kashmir" also derive their names from the former state.

Career

2003–2013: The Cataracs

Hollowell-Dhar was originally part of the hip-hop production duo the Cataracs with high school friend David Singer-Vine, releasing hits such as " Like a G6" with

Far East Movement Far East Movement (abbreviated FM) is an American hip hop and electronic music group based in Los Angeles. The group formed in 2003 and as of August 2018 consists of Kev Nish (Kevin Nishimura), Prohgress (James Roh), DJ Virman (Virman Coquia), ...

and " Bass Down Low" with

DEV Dev, sometimes capitalized as DEV, can be referred as: People Single names * Dev (born 1982), Indian actor * Dev (born 1984), British radio presenter, DJ and actor * Dev (born 1989), American singer * Dev, Indian actor First names * Dev Anand (19 ...

, and co-producing others such as

Selena Gomez Selena Marie Gomez ( ; born July 22, 1992) is an American singer, actress and producer. Gomez began her acting career on the children's television series ''Barney & Friends'' (2002–2004). As a teenager, she rose to prominence for starring a ...

's second song off her debut album ''

Stars Dance ''Stars Dance'' is the first solo studio album by American singer Selena Gomez. It was released on July 19, 2013, by Hollywood Records. Gomez began planning the project in 2012, at which time she announced that her band Selena Gomez & the Scene ...

''. Following Singer-Vine's departure from the duo in 2012, Hollowell-Dhar continued producing music with the name the Cataracs until 2014.

2014: Transition into Kshmr

In 2014, Hollowell-Dhar started making

electro house Electro house is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by heavy bass and a tempo around 130 beats per minute. The term has been used to describe the music of many ''DJ Mag'' Top 100 DJs, including Benny Benassi, Skrillex, Steve Aoki ...

music under the alias of Kshmr. Under this name, he charted on

Beatport Beatport is an American electronic music-oriented online music store owned by LiveStyle. The company is based in Denver, Los Angeles, and Berlin. Beatport is oriented primarily towards DJs, selling full songs as well as resources that can be us ...

. Before he released songs under Kshmr, he co-produced tracks like '

Tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

' by DVBBS and Borgeous, as well as 'Stampede' by

Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike are a Belgian–Greek DJ duo composed of brothers Dimitri Thivaios and Michael Thivaios. They were ranked No. 1 on ''DJ Mag''s Top 100 DJs list in 2015 and 2019, and were ranked No. 2 in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020 ...

, Dvbbs, and Borgeous. Hollowell-Dhar released his first single "Megalodon" on February 24, 2014, through

. A Kshmr and R3hab collaboration resulted in the single "Karate" that charted in SNEP in March 2015. Most of Hollowell-Dhar's songs are released under

. Hollowell-Dhar started raising attention when his single "Burn", a collaboration with DallasK, debuted reached the Top 40 chart on Beatport then eventually reached No. 1. The song has been released on 3 labels:

Revealed Recordings Revealed Recordings (or shortened to Revealed, stylized as revealed) is a Dutch record label established by Hardwell in 2010. The label is headquartered in Breda, Netherlands. History The label was established on 11 April 2010 by electronic music ...

, and Ultra Records.

2015: ''Secrets''

Until Hollowell-Dhar was introduced at Ultra Music Festival 2015 by

Tiësto Tijs Michiel Verwest (; born 17 January 1969), known professionally as Tiësto ( ), is a Dutch DJ and music producer from Breda. He was voted "the Greatest DJ of All Time" by ''Mix'' magazine in a 2010/2011 poll amongst fans. In 2013, he was vo ...

, his identity was relatively unknown. His song, " Secrets", a collaboration with

and Vassy was largely successful, streaming through buzz charts, and reaching the top of the Beatport Chart. In June 2015, Hollowell-Dhar announced he would host with Spinnin' Records a remix contest for his track "Jammu" – the first prize being a collaboration with Hollowell-Dhar on a new track. The contest was held on Spinnin Records' Talent Pool platform and the first place went to KYFRA, who won the collaboration with Hollowell-Dhar. In July 2015, Hollowell-Dhar released his highly anticipated debut sound pack exclusively with Splice Sounds. After the contest, Hollowell-Dhar announced his first live performance, at the Fonda Theater, Los Angeles, which took place on September 19, 2015.

2016: ''The Lion Across the Field''

He released his first EP, "The Lion Across the Field" on May 13, 2016. On July 23, 2016, he performed his first set in the Tomorrowland music festival, on the mainstage. On September 5, 2016, he collaborated with

Tigerlily ''Tigerlily'' is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant, released on June 20, 1995, following her departure from the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs. ''Tigerlily'' peaked at No. 13 on the ''Billboard'' 200 ...

to release his new single, "Invisible Children". Hollowell-Dhar said "The project was already a great start. I added my ideas and it came together pretty quickly. The name comes from a term referring to slum kids in India and places around the world where poverty is so rampant that people begin to stop noticing". Two weeks later, he was awarded "Best Live Act" category on

2016. His place elevated from 23rd to 12th in DJ Mag's 2016 Top 100 DJs list. On October 24, 2016, he collaborated with Bassjackers to release their single "Extreme" featuring Sidnie Tipton via Spinnin' Records. In an emailed statement, Bassjackers said "Besides a musical connection, we also developed a friendship outside of music. We think that friendship contributes to what makes this song so special". In October 2016, he released his new song with Will Sparks titled "Voices" as a free download on Spinnin' Premium.

2017: Dharma Worldwide and ''Power''

In March 2017, Hollowell-Dhar released "Back To Me" with Crossnaders featuring Micky Blue. He performed at Ultra Music Festival on March 24, 2017, with

Timmy Trumpet Timothy Jude Smith (born 9 June 1982), known by his stage name Timmy Trumpet, is an Australian musician, DJ, songwriter and record producer. He has become known internationally for playing the trumpet live and making use of jazz elements in dan ...

and played with live musicians throughout the whole set for the first time in his career, as he wrote: On June 16, 2017, "Harder", a collaboration between Hollowell-Dhar and Tiësto, was released via Spinnin' Records. The first song released via Kshmr's label, Dharma Worldwide, was "Festival of Lights", a collaboration with Maurice West. "Festival of Lights" is heavily based on Indian culture. Within a week, Hollowell-Dhar released "Kolkata" on July 28, 2017, a collaboration with JDG and Mariana BO on Dharma. He also played at the mainstage of Tomorrowland 2017 on July 29, a day after releasing "Kolkata". "Divination", a collaboration between Hollowell-Dhar and Dutch duo No Mondays was released on August 4, 2017. "The Serpent" was released on the same day as a collaboration with Snails. On September 22, 2017, Hollowell-Dhar released "Power" with

Hardwell Robbert van de Corput (; born January 7, 1988), known professionally as Hardwell, is a Dutch DJ and music producer from Breda. He was voted the world's number one DJ by ''DJ Mag'' in 2013 and again in 2014. In 2022, he was ranked at number 43 i ...

on Spinnin' Records. Hollowell-Dhar collaborated with

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

singer

Sonu Nigam Sonu Nigam (born 30 July 1973) is an Indian singer, music director and actor. He has been described in the media as one of the most popular and successful playback singers of Hindi Cinema and Kannada Cinema. He has been honoured by the Gover ...

for track "Underwater" which was released on October 13, 2017, on his label Dharma Worldwide. On December 1, 2017, Hollowell-Dhar released "Islands" on Dharma Worldwide with

producer R3HAB. Within the same month, Hollowell-Dhar worked with producers Marnik and the Golden Army to release a psytrance influenced

big room house Big room house or simply big room is a fusion subgenre of house music (notably progressive house and electro house) that gained popularity in the early 2010s. Characterized by its simple instrumentation yet complex structure, big room house so ...

track titled "Shiva" on December 29, 2017.

2018: ''House of Cards, Carry Me Home,'' and ''Magic''

Kshmr released "House Of Cards" on February 16, 2018, which features Sidnie Tipton, who provided vocals to "Wildcard". Lacking Hollowell-Dhar's notable big room elements, the track is influenced by

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' (G ...

and acoustic components such as guitar riffs in the song's break. He also played the mainstage of Ultra Music Festival Miami with a set presenting new tracks and many of his well-known productions. On May 18, 2018, Hollowell-Dhar released "Doonka" which incorporates elements of both big room and

trap music Trap is a subgenre of hip hop music that originated in the Southern United States during the 1990s. The genre gets its name from the Atlanta slang word "trap", a house used exclusively to sell drugs. Trap music uses synthesized drums and is ch ...

as a free download with Mr.Black. Hollowell-Dhar collaborated with Jake Reese to release "Carry Me Home" on June 15, 2018, a

progressive house Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of American and European house music of the late 1980s.Gerard, Morgan; ...

song originally premiered at his 2018 Ultra Music Festival performance. Commenting on the track's production, Hollowell-Dhar stated, "Carry Me Home started with the drop melody. I was scared I wouldn't find a vocal I loved just as much, but Jake Reese and o-writer Joren van der Voortblew me away with what they wrote." He released Greek-influenced single "Opa" with

on July 22, 2018, and "Neverland" with 7 Skies on August 3, 2018, which combined elements from the genres of bounce and big room house. The duo had previously worked together on a sample pack titled Symphony-Serum Hybrid Orchestra on music creation platform

Splice Splice may refer to: Connections * Rope splicing, joining two pieces of rope or cable by weaving the strands of each into the other ** Eye splice, a method of creating a permanent loop in the end of multi stranded rope by means of rope splicing * ...

. His next single titled "Good Vibes Soldier", co-produced with Israeli psytrance duo Vini Vici and comprising elements of

reggaeton Reggaeton (, ), also known as reggaetón and reguetón (), is a music style that originated in Panama during the late 1980s. It was later popularized in Puerto Rico. It has evolved from dancehall and has been influenced by American hip hop, ...

and rap, was released on August 24, 2018. On November 2, 2018, he released big room single "Magic", which features uncredited vocals by Vassy. ''

Dancing Astronaut Dancing Astronaut is an American media platform founded in 2009 that primarily covers the electronic dance music industry. The website covers concerts and festivals, reports on entertainment news, reviews music, and publishes original content sy ...

'' lauded the track as a return to Hollowell-Dhar's older era sound, together with its vocal resemblance to

David Guetta Pierre David Guetta ( , ; born 7 November 1967) is a French DJ and music producer. He has over 10 million album and 65 million single sales globally, with more than 10 billion streams. In 2011, 2020 and 2021, Guetta was voted the number one D ...

's " Bad". Regarding the song's backstory, Hollowell-Dhar revealed that "Magic" was originally produced with Adrian Lux two years prior, with the duo failing to bring the track into the right direction then. Lux eventually gave up on the song, but Hollowell-Dhar continued working on the song until its final release.

2019: ''No Regrets'' and ''Devil Inside Me''

Hollowell-Dhar's first release of the year was a collaboration with Belgian producer

Yves V Yves Van Geertsom, known professionally as Yves V () or Eefee, is a Belgian DJ and record producer. In 2019, he was voted in at number 56 in the ''DJ Mag'' Top 100. Career Yves V has performed at festivals such as TomorrowWorld, Sensation, ...

and American band Krewella titled "No Regrets". Released through Dharma on March 1, 2019, the track's chord patterns and drop were favorably compared to Alan Walker's signature sounds and style. In the same month, Hollowell-Dhar released 'Devil Inside Me' with Swedish producer Kaaze and vocalist Kaara. The melody of the song samples some elements the Jewish ballad, "

Shalom Aleichem ''Shalom aleichem'' (; he, שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם, ; ) is a spoken greeting in Hebrew, meaning " peace be upon you". The appropriate response is ("unto you peace") ( he, עֲלֵיכֶם שָׁלוֹם). The plural form "" is used ev ...

On June 24, 2019, Hollowell-Dhar announced the release of a new educational Dharma Worldwide platform consisting of tutorials, templates, and samples. Following that, a big room collaboration with Australian producer

, titled "The People", was released on June 28, 2019. The next day, he released "Lies" with Dutch producer B3rror featuring the vocals of Luciana. Hollowell-Dhar then released "My Best Life" with Australian singer Mike Waters on July 12, 2019. Regarding the song, Niles said, "This song, made by me and Mike Waters, is about social media and how it has become a tool for measuring ourselves. We talked about how it can be freeing to submit to the fact that somebody will always have nicer things and from there the lyrics came together".James Todoroski (July 12th 2019
Kshmr drops summer single My best Life with Mike Waters
''We Rave You.'' Retrieved July 8, 2020. The track sparked some controversy with Indian rapper Emiway Bantai's song "Machayenge" as they both sampled some portions from Hollowell-Dhar's sample pack ''Sounds of KSHMR Volume 3''.

2020: ''One More Round''

On October 15, 2020, Hollowell-Dhar released the single "One More Round" featuring Jeremy Oceans. It was released on

and is a collaboration with Singaporean game developer Garena for their game Free Fire in celebration of the game's "Booyah Day" event which ran from October 16 to November 1. As a result of this collaboration, Free Fire introduced into their game a new character based on Hollowell-Dhar named K.

2021: ''Harmonica Andromeda''

Hollowell-Dhar released two songs: "The World We Left Behind" featuring Karra and "Around the World" with producer Noumenn and uncredited vocals by Ivy on January 15 and February 26 respectively, as the first and second singles from his debut studio album ''Harmonica Andromeda''. The rest of the album was released on March 19, featuring 11 songs and 3 interludes. On June 11, a deluxe version of the album was released with 5 new songs, amounting to 19 tracks in total. On May 24, 2021, Hollowell-Dhar, along with Armaan Malik and Eric Nam, released their new joint single, "Echo," in celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. Regarding the song, Hollowell-Dhar said, "Echo is a song about tough relationships that I think we can all relate to. It was a demo I started years ago, unsure of how to finish it until I met Armaan. The voice and story he brought to the song was the perfect fit. Eric lent his awesome talent and it became a cross-country Asian collaboration, which I love." On August 5, 2021, Hollowell-Dhar released the psytrance-influenced big room house track "Winners Anthem" with Zafrir. Later that month on the 24th, he along with

Alok Alok is an Indian given name of Sanskrit origin. People with the given name Alok *Alok (DJ) (born 1991), Brazilian DJ and music producer * Alok Bhargava (born 1954), Indian-American econometrician *Alok R. Chaturvedi, Professor of Information Syst ...

and

released a slap house track for Garena Free Fire's 4th anniversary, titled "Reunion". He then released "Close Your Eyes" with Norwegian artist and music producer

Martin Tungevaag Martin Tungevåg (born July 9, 1993), known professionally as Martin Tungevaag or simpily Tungevaag, is a Norwegian DJ and music producer who placed at number #89 on the ''DJ Mag'' top 100 DJs list. He has achieved success in Europe, Asia and S ...

on November 19.

2022: Lion Heart

On February 25, Hollowell-Dhar released the single "Lion Heart" in collaboration with Indian rapper Divine and Argentine freestyle rapper Lit Killah featuring Jeremy Oceans and frequent collaborator Karra.

Musical style

Hollowell-Dhar had a number of Beatport hits, such as "No Heroes", "Burn", "Dead Mans Hand", "Kashmir", "Dogs", "Karate", his remix of duo Nervo's song "It Feels", and "Jammu". His logo, artist name, and tracks like "Delhi", "Jammu", "Kashmir", "Bazaar", "Dharma" and his EP "Paradesi" are based on and/or inspired by his half Kashmiri ethnic descent: In 2015, Hollowell-Dhar was ranked number 23 on ''

's'' Top 100 DJs of the year poll, the highest new entry that year. His position in the Top 100 DJs of 2016 elevated by 11 from the previous year to be placed at 12th. Hollowell-Dhar currently uses Ableton Live 10 as his DAW. While part of the Cataracs, he used

Reason Reason is the capacity of Consciousness, consciously applying logic by Logical consequence, drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activ ...

Discography

* ''Harmonica Andromeda'' (2021)

Accolades

References

{{authority control Indian DJs Living people Spinnin' Records artists 1988 births American people of Kashmiri descent Kashmiri Hindus American male musicians of Indian descent Musicians from San Diego American DJs