William Sami Étienne Grigahcine (born 13 June 1986), known by his stage name DJ Snake, is a French music producer and DJ, first achieving international recognition in 2013 by releasing an instrumentation-oriented single called "Turn Down for What" (with Lil Jon).
2005
In 2005, he met his manager Steve Goncalves, who encouraged Grigahcine to begin creating his own music.
2011
In 2011, DJ Snake produced for Lady Gaga's album Born This Way.
2012
This earned him a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year in February 2012.
DJ Snake was co-producer for the song "Government Hooker", which was voted best song by Lady Gaga fans after the release of the album.
This song was supposed to be released as a single before Interscope Records decided to stop the marketing of the album after its release.
He remixed Kanye West's "New Slaves", AlunaGeorge's "You Know You Like It", Duck Sauce's "It's You", Major Lazer's "Bubble Butt" and Junior Senior's "Move Your Feet".
2013
He made his international debut with the singles "Bird Machine" and "Turn Down for What" in 2013.
"Bird Machine" is a collaboration with fellow French musician Alesia.
The single was picked up by Mad Decent, a Los Angeles–based record label run by Diplo.
In 2013, DJ Snake produced three songs with Paul "DJ White Shadow" Blair on Lady Gaga's album Artpop including "Applause", "Sexxx Dreams", and "Do What U Want".
In December 2013, "Turn Down for What", DJ Snake's collaboration with Lil Jon, was released on Columbia Records.
The song was featured in a commercial for the Sol Republic DECK, a wireless speaker, which aired in October 2013.
"Turn Down for What" entered the top ten of the Billboard Dance/Electronic chart during the last week of December.
2014
DJ Snake was announced to be working on a collaboration with Diplo, originally slated to debut in 2014; it released in 2015 as the single "Lean On" in collaboration with MØ and Diplo's Major Lazer.
In 2014, DJ Snake was labelled as an "Artist to Watch" by FoxWeekly.
He and Dillon Francis were announced as alternating supporting artists for the summer Mothership Tour 2014 with Skrillex.
DJ Snake and Dillon Francis were alternating supporting artists on the Mothership Tour 2014 with Skrillex.
In January 2014, the single entered the top 5 on the Dance/Electronic chart and debuted No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song was certified gold in February 2014 and platinum in March 2014.
The song reached the top ten of the Hot 100 in April 2014.
The music video for the single was released in March 2014.
"Turn Down for What" was nominated for MTV Video Music Awards for Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Visual Effects, and the MTV Clubland Award.
In February 2014, DJ Snake and Dillon Francis released "Get Low" on their official SoundCloud and YouTube pages, as the lead single from Francis's debut studio album Money Sucks, Friends Rule.
Both "Get Low" and "Turn Down for What" were featured on the Furious 7 motion picture soundtrack.
Along with the exposure gained from commercials for Dodge and Taco Bell featuring the song, the inclusion of "Get Low" on the soundtrack helped the song re-enter the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic chart while DJ Snake re-entered the Billboard Artist 100.
In December 2014, DJ Snake's remix of the AlunaGeorge song "You Know You Like It" was released on Island Records.
2015
He performed at the 2015 Coachella Music Festival with guest appearances by AlunaGeorge and MØ, who did vocals on "Lean On" with Major Lazer.
"Lean On" and DJ Snake's remix of AlunaGeorge's "You Know You Like It" were both top 10 Shazamed songs from Coachella 2015.
In October 2015, DJ Snake and fellow electronic producer Tchami were injured in a car crash, causing them both to miss a scheduled stop at Toronto's Monster Mash festival.
"You Know You Like It" reached number one on Billboard's Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart and Rhythmic Songs chart in June 2015.
It peaked at 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
2016
In January 2016, Forbes named him one of their "30 Under 30 In Music" for the year.
2018
In March 2018, Billboard named DJ Snake as number nine on their 2018 ranking of dance musicians titled Billboard Dance 100.
Grigahcine was born in Paris to Algerian parents and grew up in Ermont, a banlieue district outside Paris, which he describes as a ghetto, though Ermont is not a economically-deprived suburb featuring low-income housing projects.
He cites a scene with Cut Killer in the French film La Haine as well as hip-hop artists KRS-One and Cypress Hill as early influences.
In his youth, Grigahcine produced graffiti art, earning him the moniker "Snake" because he was able to consistently evade the police.
Of his name, Grigahcine says "When I started DJing, everyone called me 'Snake' in my city first, I was like 'DJ Snake, OK let's go for it.' The name sucks, but it's too late now."
He started DJing at age 14, and later producing at 19.
In his early career, Grigahcine performed at clubs including Les Bains Douches in Paris.
