Candy Kid

Native Belarusian and long-time Brooklynite, Slava a.k.a. Candy Kid has been tearing up dance floors across the United States and Canada with his unique style and adrenaline-packed sets of Happy Hardcore, Gabber, DnB, Breakbit, and Acid & Euro-Trance since 2001. Slava originally got into electronic music while living in Minsk back in '93 listening to Marusha, Blumchen, Scooter, WestBam, DJ Hooligan, Das Modul, Dune, Charlie Noise & Mental Theo, Red 5 and Brooklyn Bounce. After his uncle had taught him to dejay at a young age, Slava was able to pursue his dreams of putting smiles on faces and making dance floors shake once he moved to New York City and was able to buy records and dejay equipment. You can retrace Candy Kid's first dejay set back to NYC's Halloween 2001. Since then, Slava has torn up American dance floors from east coast to west coast (and everywhere between), plays Canada on a yearly basis, and makes fans groove worldwide. His current inspirations are producers such as Hixxy, Brisk, Dougal & Gammer, Impact, Mark Smith, Angerfist, Joey Riot, Kurt, Sc@r. Slava is currently the owner of New York City's only Happy Hardcore recording label Galaxy Express Recordings, which launched in 2009. In January 2014, Slava also co-founded his first original production project Apocalypse Friends, who's music is a lethal concoction of hardcore, DnB, and trance with classical piano, Nintendocore, and ska. Along with his apocalypse friend Maria Flux, the duo has released an entirely original album. Many people wonder why Slava picked the dejay name Candy Kid. The real story behind the name goes back to when Slava was growing up in Belarus, and he ate so much candy he earned the nickname Sweet-Tooth. Before arriving in America, he had never heard of kandi/kandi-kids (etc). While a lot of people think he chose the name Candy Kid because of its social reception, the name is as simple as syrup -- Slava loves sugar. But don't let the name fool you - Candy Kid can throw down some hard and dirty beats, showing you that even the sweetest people have a dark-side. Fueling the crowd with happiness and providing an outlet for self-expression is always the biggest reward for Slava. His infections love and endless energy are what truly defines Candy Kid.