Hey there!
I’m Diogo, a passionate Electronic Dance Music enthusiast from Portugal. My first contact with electronic music was at a very young age, more than 20 years ago, though family members and video games like Wipeout. For many years, I was just a casual listener. But in my early teens, everything changed when a friend introduced me to Trance. That’s when my deep dive into EDM truly began – rushing home after school to catch live radio shows from the biggest artists, discovering new labels, and exploring fresh talent. During this time, Anjunabeats played a huge role in shaping my tastes, though I always gravitated toward faster, harder sounds. This eventually led me to search for something beyond what I was listening at the time. That search brought me to the Harder Styles, a genre that has been my passion for most of the past 15 years.
Initially, Hardstyle didn’t immediately captivate me. But as I delved deeper into this style, I stumbled upon Q-dance and their radio station. My love for this genre grew quickly back then while listening to Q-dance Radio, and pivotal moments like hearing Brennan Heart’s Musical Impressions album and listening to the 2010 livestream of In Qontrol solidified my love for this music. I realized that this music was where I belonged – it felt like home, and it still does.
Back then, no one around me really knew what Hard Dance was, and my attempts to introduce it to others fell flat. It was simply too loud and too fast for anyone I knew. So, for years, listening to this music was a solo journey.
In 2015 I had grown tired of that, and decided to search for a community online. To my surprise, the Hardstyle Portugal community already existed on Facebook. I reached out to their team, offering my help, and almost a decade later, I’m still an active member of the staff, having witnessed and contributed to the community’s growth firsthand.
After being involved in the community for a while, I felt the urge to take things further and share my love for Hardstyle with a wider audience. In 2019, I combined my passion for writing with my love for Hard Dance by joining the now-defunct Portuguese EDM online magazine, Wide Future. I started as a guest writer but quickly became a staff writer, eventually rising to the role of Editor-in-Chief and assistant to the CEO/Founder. My 3 years there were incredibly fulfilling. I tried to help in everything I could and be a team player, eventually earning myself the opportunity to do press work at events and interview major artists such as Ran-D and D-Block & S-te-Fan.
In 2020, I applied to be a party reporter at Hard News and was accepted, but unfortunately, the pandemic hit shortly afterward, and everything came into a halt. To my knowledge, no one from that group has ever got the chance to do any work for the site, unfortunately. Nonetheless, writing for Hard News remains one of my biggest goals.
After 2020, everything slowed down, for everyone – especially in my community. Events were hard to get back on track, and this struggle continues today.
My writing “career” also somewhat abruptly ended shortly thereafter, with Wide Future facing the same challenges as many other publications and eventually shutting down.
This brings us to 2024, when this website was founded. With it, I’m seeking a fresh outlet to write about EDM, particularly Hard Dance. There’s just so much I feel compelled to share. I also believe music curation is more necessary than ever in this day and age of overwhelming content – both in quantity and quality – so I hope to contribute to that here as well.
Other than that, I obviously love attending events, especially festivals. I’ve been to several small parties and festivals in my country, the vast majority of them Hard Dance related, but also a bit of Drum & Bass and Techno. I’ve also had the privilege of attending four consecutive editions of Defqon.1 Weekend Festival, a dream event that I had longed to experience for years.
I hope you enjoy this blog!