{"id":34496,"date":"2026-03-06T18:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T18:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/34496\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T18:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T18:45:07","slug":"why-mau-p-wants-to-be-like-radiohead-but-for-dance-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/34496\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Mau P Wants to Be ‘Like Radiohead, But for Dance Music’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s not exactly news when DJs post photos of themselves to Instagram, but when Mau\u00a0P<\/a> did so on Jan.\u00a05, the carousel didn\u2019t just include shots of the Dutch dance<\/a> producer\u2019s glam lifestyle and naturally looksmaxxed face.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn 2026 I will give the world an album, a label, a clothing line,\u201d declared a note rather unceremoniously tucked between a photo of the artist staring into the camera, his recently bleached blonde hair glistening, and another of him walking onstage, party cup in hand. The proclamation \u2014 which one dance music blog would soon say \u201csent shock waves through the dance music community\u201d \u2014 was ambitious, to say the least. And no one on his team knew he was posting it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI just wanted to put it online so people would hold me accountable for it,\u201d Mau says over sushi rolls at a dimly lit Downtown Los Angeles restaurant in mid-January, the week after sharing his plans with the world. \u201cNow, I have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tMau P will headline Billboard\u2019s THE STAGE at SXSW<\/a> at Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park in Austin on March\u00a015. Get your tickets here<\/a>.\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMau\u2019s nonchalant approach to major announcements could scan as amateurish in an industry where marketing strategies are more typically timed to the minute and treated like state secrets. But for the 29-year-old producer \u2014 an omnipresent figure in the global dance scene since his viral 2022 debut single, \u201cDrugs From Amsterdam\u201d \u2014 following his instincts and trusting his inner circle have yielded spectacular success. This includes but is not limited to hundreds of millions of streams, massive headlining shows and the brown suede Prada tote bag he carries with him today that retails for more than my rent.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy whole career has been like that,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople might think there\u2019s a big organization behind it, but it\u2019s just friends and people I work really well with, and we\u2019re all just figuring it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2025, \u201cjust figuring it out\u201d involved saying yes to as many shows as he could physically play. The run included key dance festivals like EDC, Ultra, Portola, Elements, the Netherlands\u2019 Awakenings and splashy all-genre events like Lollapalooza and Coachella, where he played a pair of packed shows that he calls \u201cthe biggest thing that happened [for me] last year,\u201d given that so many people around the world saw him perform on the festival\u2019s livestream. Happening during the hallowed Saturday-night time slot, the show turned the Sahara tent into a loose, sweaty, properly ravey party for the roughly 50,000 people congregated inside.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat was honestly also just put together by me and my friends,\u201d he says of the Coachella shows. \u201cThe guy who made the stage production is so young, and we\u2019d just started working with him. It was him, me and one of my best friends sitting in an office, acting like we had it all figured out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mau<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGraeme Studio Archive shirt and jacket, AGOLDE jeans, Taiga Takahashi belt, Universal Optical eyewear from RetroSpecs LA.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJoelle Grace Taylor<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, every Wednesday from August to October, he was in Ibiza for his debut island residency at the clubbing institution Pacha, which had enough faith in Mau\u00a0P\u2019s appeal to put posters of his face on the sides of local buses. He equates the residency to intensive training, saying that by season\u2019s end \u201cI was like, \u2018I\u2019ve got it now. I really know how to control the room.\u2019\u00a0\u201d (He\u2019ll return to Pacha for round two this summer.) In October, 37,900 people saw him play a pair of headlining shows at Los Angeles State Historic Park that together grossed $3.1\u00a0million, according to Billboard Boxscore.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo it\u2019s understandable that he hasn\u2019t quite had time to refine his three big projects for 2026. The label? A work in progress. The fashion line? \u201cI haven\u2019t started on that yet.\u201d The album? \u201cIt\u2019s still very rough, but I sort of know what to do.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThese are all things I\u2019ve been thinking about for at least two or three years,\u201d he adds. \u201cSo I\u2019ve been waiting to actually start doing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven how seamless he\u2019s made his accomplishments thus far look, it seems likely he\u2019ll pull off this hat trick of projects on his specified timeline \u2014 and as big as he already is, they might make him even bigger.<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore he was Mau\u00a0P, he was Maurits Westveen, born into a musical family in Amsterdam. His mother is a singer, and his father was a music teacher, conductor and session musician who could play two saxophones at the same time; the pair of saxes tattooed on Mau\u2019s left forearm are a tribute to his dad, Gerbrand Westveen, who died in 2015. When he\u2019s not working on the road, Mau makes music at the Amsterdam studio where Gerbrand used to work, a place he calls \u201cone of those hippie, old-leather-couch-and-rug kind of spots.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe released \u201cThe Formula,\u201d his first single as Maurice West \u2014 a play on his birth name, and the moniker he made dance music under for eight years before adopting his current name \u2014 in 2014. Over the next half decade, he officially remixed titans like Ti\u00ebsto and KSHMR and collaborated with Hardwell, finding traction with big room EDM. After his 4\u00a0p.m. slot at Ultra Music Festival 2018, a Reddit user called him \u201ceasily the most underrated artist in the scene.\u201d The observation was prescient. Seven years later, in March 2025, he closed one of the Miami dance megafest\u2019s biggest stages during a b2b2b2b set alongside dance heroes Solomun, Four Tet and Chlo\u00e9 Caillet, but with both a distinctly different style of dance music and a new name.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI always thought I had to do stuff in the traditional way the other big guys did it in order to become big,\u201d he says. \u201cFor press pictures, I thought I needed a really good creative director to make this whole concept for me, or that I needed a lot of money to invest, or that I needed the best team. But I noticed that after so many years of not succeeding, you just sort of have to do it yourself. And it works because it makes things more real to people, because they understand it comes from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mau<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tVintage t-shirt, JW Anderson pants.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJoelle Grace Taylor<\/p>\n

\n\tThe final Maurice West single, the catchy but largely bland big room track \u201cGasoline,\u201d came out in July 2022. Less than a month later, a freshly launched @maup Instagram account posted a teaser of a dark, bouncy tech house track, with vocals declaring, \u201cOff my face don\u2019t know where I am, \u2019cause I got my drugs from Amsterdam.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI should probably release this one,\u201d read the caption.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDrugs From Amsterdam\u201d came out three weeks later on Repopulate Mars, the label founded by producer Lee Foss. (The imprint had also recently released a few of the first tracks by another dance world upstart-turned-superstar, John Summit, whose Experts Only label later released tracks by Mau\u00a0P.)<\/p>\n

\n\tWith his rebrand, Mau ditched the big room style that by 2022 felt like a relic of a bygone era. \u201cDrugs From Amsterdam,\u201d which has reached nearly 300\u00a0million global streams, according to Luminate, helped the tech house genre skyrocket past EDM in popularity in the United States, further solidifying not just a new sound but a new generation of star producers. \u201cWhen I changed my artist name and released that song,\u201d Mau says, \u201ceverything started to click.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe track also captured Mau\u2019s preferred way of working: with day ones he knows and trusts, even if they\u2019re not the flashiest collaborators. His team now includes co-managers Julius Leuftink, who Mau has been friends with since they were both 15, and Halil \u00c7akar of The Replay Group; CAA\u2019s Roger Semaan; producer Jack Fayad; videographer Tommy Reerink; and stylist Blake Hardy. \u201cWe all know each other really well, so we know how to work without any static,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong them is longtime collaborator Robert Pronk, who Mau met during a 2020 writing session arranged by his publisher. \u201cDrugs From Amsterdam\u201d was the first time they struck gold. A sort of secret weapon, Pronk \u201cdoesn\u2019t know anything about dance music,\u201d Mau says. \u201cHe\u2019s in his late 30s. He has three kids and teaches at a technical school. He absolutely does not know how to do social; he\u2019ll take a screenshot of my post or screen record my stories in s\u2013tty quality, and that\u2019s his promo for this song.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe nice thing,\u201d he continues, \u201cis that people [like Pronk] might not want the spotlight, but I\u2019ll still give it to them. When people are great at what they do, they deserve the credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mau<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJoelle Grace Taylor<\/p>\n

\n\tMau credits Pronk \u2014 who\u2019s listed as a \u00adcomposer and producer on most of Mau\u2019s hits, including \u201cTesla,\u201d \u201cLike I Like It,\u201d \u201cMerther\u201d and \u201cGimme That Bounce\u201d \u2014 with helping instill his dance productions with more traditional songwriting and says he\u2019s \u201cvery involved\u201d with the album. As a whole, Mau\u2019s music jettisons anthemic tendencies, instead staying in a sexy, groovy, tongue-in-cheek wheelhouse that leans hard into party culture. (\u201cYo, I just popped a Tesla, ain\u2019t no need to charge\u201d states 2025\u2019s \u201cTesla,\u201d which references the famous ecstasy pills stamped with Tesla logos and pulses with the kind of bump-and-grind sexuality one might feel after taking one.) While a lot of dance music takes itself so seriously that it feels claustrophobic, Mau\u2019s work has a swaggering self-awareness and sense of humor.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trick, he says, is giving each song what he calls a \u201cmiddle finger\u201d moment. It\u2019s \u201ca certain boundary-pushing element that could throw people off a bit,\u201d he says. For example, his 2023 track \u201cDress Code\u201d flips the finger when the wailing gospel vocal that rises during its chorus is cut off by the song\u2019s vocalist going \u201cshhh, shut up\u201d before the track proceeds. And Pronk, he says, \u201creally understands the middle finger. We\u2019re always both looking for the \u2018f\u2013k you\u2019 in a song.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis signature has helped Mau generate 683.6\u00a0million official global on-demand streams, according to Luminate, a number that\u2019s even more impressive when considering that his entire catalog contains just 14 original tracks, along with official edits of songs by Armand van Helden, Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafia.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile he can make music quickly and says he could increase his output if he wanted, \u201cI put a lot of pressure on myself and I want to have big moments. Not for the fame, but for the sake of having something very valuable. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t make a lot of songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTranslating a style he himself calls \u201csexy and intimate\u201d into an album will take time, but a slower speed may ultimately benefit the final product as he tries to \u201cfind a way [to make] modern-day dance music more timeless. Especially in tech house, there\u2019s so many songs that get made, get played for a little while and then we forgot about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe foresees the album having 10 or 12 songs and is already playing out three tracks likely to land on the project. (None of his previously released music will be on the album.) His team has helped him carve out weeks off the road (time he feels he earned by playing so many shows last year) to make music back in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile he\u2019s currently working on a track with Offset and hip-hop producer Murda Beatz that\u2019s likely to come out in the next few months, the only person he really invites over to his studio is Pronk. Here, he imagines creating a checklist for each track and \u201csystematically going at it,\u201d hoping to eventually emerge with an album \u201cyou can listen to from front to back. I want it to be like Radiohead, but for dance music.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m still figuring it out,\u201d he says, \u201cbut that\u2019s why I want to do it, because I\u2019ve never done it before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mau<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tVintage t-shirt, Cartier watch, Chanella van Bemmel for TROPHY BY GASSAN bracelet and earrings.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJoelle Grace Taylor<\/p>\n

\n\tHe speculates that this time at home will also give him space to think about his clothing line, which has nothing to do with standard issue merchandise. \u201cThere are so many people already making stuff with my logo and just selling it on Etsy or whatever and making money. I\u2019m like, \u2018Awesome.\u2019\u00a0\u201d (He\u2019s not being sarcastic \u2014 he\u2019s grateful for the free marketing. Among other items, unlicensed baby doll tanks stating \u201cI <3 Mau Papi\u201d sell for $40 on the site.)<\/p>\n

\n\tHis vision is instead to make and sell clothing he\u2019d actually wear. \u201cIt\u2019s such an easy formula, because I\u2019m everywhere doing shows where people see me, so I can show the product to them. I\u2019d rather have the fashion line be a culture or style we can all be part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile he could presumably call up any given fashion house and make it happen, he\u2019s making these plans with personal stylist Hardy. \u201cHe\u2019s also never done a clothing line, so it\u2019s nice that we get to grow and figure it out together,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s where the fun part is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for the label, Mau and the team unsurprisingly got a barrage of calls after his announcement post asking how they could be part of it. The project will be called Baddest Behaviour Records \u2014 sharing its name with his Baddest Behaviour party in Ibiza \u2014 and he and the team are currently deciding between two potential distributors. Having released his music across a flurry of dance imprints, a strategy that Mau says helped introduce him and his work to different factions of the scene, he\u2019s excited to create an outlet for the work of rising artists \u2014 and to maybe discover the next Mau\u00a0P.<\/p>\n

\n\tMau\u2019s go-with-the-flow approach works, at least in part because his team both thrives off the excitement and contributes to the output. \u201cI hate spreadsheets, and I hate putting something on the calendar for a month out that we\u2019re going to hate when the time comes,\u201d co-manager \u00c7akar says. \u201cWe like working in the moment, and that doesn\u2019t really feel like a job. We\u2019re just doing cool s\u2013t on a day-to-day basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile this approach doesn\u2019t necessarily require long-term goals, the general plan for 2026 is for Mau to work on his projects while he continues to break in his native Europe and in Australia, where he\u2019ll play his first stand-alone headlining shows later in March. \u201cMau is in a position where he doesn\u2019t have to say yes to everything,\u201d \u00c7akar says. \u201cWe can carefully curate shows because he\u2019s balancing being in the mainstream eye while having the respect of the underground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mau<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCeline shirt and hoodie, Ambrose Gray rings. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJoelle Grace Taylor<\/p>\n

\n\tAs \u00c7akar tells it, this growth is not just a function of his catalog of bangers, but because people just like being around him.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMau will go play in Tulum [Mexico] and sit and talk and party with all the big DJs and let them love him,\u201d \u00c7akar says. \u201cThat\u2019s something you can\u2019t do on the back end as management or an agent. He\u2019s gone out and created those relationships himself, and that\u2019s earned him the respect that helps a lot in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut like everything else he does, this networking isn\u2019t forced. \u201cHe\u2019s genuinely doing it because he\u2019s a fan of them,\u201d \u00c7akar continues. \u201cHe wants them to like him because he loves them, but doesn\u2019t want them to know that he\u2019s, like, their biggest fan. He knows how to schmooze people, and that helps out so much with everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, there\u2019s a subtle but important difference between hardcore schmoozing and just being a good hang. In person in L.A., Mau is friendly, thoughtful and exudes calm while he talks about his work, his travels, the differences between sushi from the United States and Japan (\u201cone is saltier\u201d) and the time he and DJ-producer Seth Troxler took edibles in Lima, Peru, before a fine dining meal (\u201con a weed gummy, that\u2019s just so much more fun\u201d). He says he has a tendency to overanalyze, but with the help of a therapist he started seeing six months ago, he\u2019s also just accepted \u201cthat it can\u2019t all be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd yet, while listening to him talk about his plans and goals, how they might all come together and how a lot of them already have, things sound pretty ideal. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel all over the place,\u201d Mau says of his career, \u201cor like the train is moving faster than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mau<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appears in the March 7, 2026, issue of Billboard.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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