Ronin & Nesta

Beirut has been many things to many people over the last century, but thanks to a devoted team of industry players - including whirlwind DJ tag team Ronin & Nesta - the city has become a hotbed of house music. Together they have cemented Beirut's place on the global clubbing map. The pair originally met through a mutual friend in Paris, who hooked the then teenagers up online. They soon bonded over a shared love for electronic music, began playing at the same parties and later merged their radio shows to create Beirut In the Mix - a pulsating, back-to-back mix of underground sounds ranging from deep house to twisted tech. The show quickly escalated into a fully fledged party brand, residency and artist collective, while the radio show - now top ranked on iTunes - was picked up by the region's largest radio station Mix FM, for a prime-time slot, airing at 8pm every Saturday and featuring monthly guests such as Josh Wink, Wareika, Deetron, Djebali, Philip Bader, Terry Francis among many others. From there, Ronin & Nesta's career has skyrocketed. They were picked up by DJ Mag as up-and-coming heroes (ranked number 6 in DJ Mag Middle East’s poll of 2010) and have notched up thousands of air-miles traveling to the Middle-East and Europe. Earmarked as Lebanese house ambassadors, the duo commandeered their own truck at the Paris Technoparade through a crowd that neared half a million, were chosen twice to close out the 20,000 strong Sandance Festival as well as the notorious Creamfields Festival in Abu Dhabi, rocking the house arena and the Red Bull Silent Disco tent. They also played the FACT Barcelona off-Sonar Pool party series, Creamfields Beirut and got recently invited to the Red Bull Music Academy Bass Camp. Closer to home however, the pair have helped push a vibrant and kinetic house sound for the past few years, hosting and supporting the great and very good of the international DJ scene, including playing Beirut best clubs alongside the likes of Marco Carola, Sasha, Martin Buttrich, Tale Of Us, Carl Cox, Lee Foss, Luciano, My Favorite Robot, John Digweed, Tiefchwarz, Apollonia, Dubfire, Josh Wink, Danny Howells, Lee Burridge, Marc Houle, Danny Daze, James Zabiela, Paco Osuna, Blond:ish, Gunnar Stiller, Terry Francis, Nathan Coles, Nicholas, Robert Dietz, Gorge, Marco Ressman, Sharam, Magda, Ralf Kollmann, Tolga Fidan, Matt Tolfrey, Tiger & Woods, Hernan Cattaneo, Alex Picone, Davide Squillace, Djebali, Troy Pierce, Satoshi Tomiie, Gui Boratto and virtually every other DJ in the RA and DJ Mag Top 100. Like the fresh-faced duo, their music tastes have matured nicely with initial preferences for filtered French house and electro making way for a fresh take on the nu-school house genre, digging into sultrier grooves and opening up a world of downright sexy pleasures. And it's a sound that they take around Beirut with them on a weekly basis. With their residency at DJ Mag Top 100 club The Basement ending in 2010, Ronin & Nesta are now guests at virtually every club in the region and are now residents for the big names überhaus and Mix FM parties that dominate the city. They have featured and promoted regional Circoloco, Bedrock, Toolroom, Cadenza, Ministry of Sound, Global Underground and FACT nights, and have strongly established their Beirut In the Mix parties with all-time DJ friend Phil, striving to keep warm, deep house alive and kicking, and inviting cutting edge artists from all 4 corners of the world. With a dedicated fully-fledged production studio ready, the boys see their first releases gaining widespread support among the likes of Sasha, Dubfire, Paul Loraine, Sasse, Eddie Richards, Brett Johnson and DJ T among many others, carving themselves an enviable reputation. Meanwhile, the tag-team duo are making the most of Beirut, a city that's alternatively a thriving cultural hub, riven yet united by political and religious differences and the hottest property on the Middle-East house market.