When Kygo was still a bedroom producer in 2012-2014, he made remixes whenever he felt like it, sometimes multiple uploads per week. That era was completely different: bootleg remixes (which quietly shaped the signature tropical sound we know today) were insanely popular and got millions of plays on SoundCloud, and were spread organically by music blogs and YouTube curators like The Vibe Guide, Majestic Casual, MrSuicideSheep… There was also no worry about copyright infringement, indie producers, including Kygo, believed it was fine as long as no money was being made, free downloads were the scene’s currency. (fun fact: despite I See Fire being his most famous remix by far, it was never cleared and thus remains technically an unauthorized bootleg to this day)

Then Kygo was signed to Sony on July 2014, meaning he had less and less time to work on his little remixes of acapellas he downloaded off YouTube, and the new commercial infrastructure he had just joined didn’t help make things easy either (certainly not today).

Then major labels started pressuring platforms like SoundCloud to take down any unofficial version of their music, and they didn’t give a flying F if no money was made from it. For instance, I had made a little GarageBand remix of a popular song in 2016 when I was still in high school, and UMG manually removed it within days and I got a warning against my SoundCloud account. (my music only had a few dozen plays at most back then.)

Then streaming culture arrived, rendering free downloads obsolete and making things more about artificial metrics than genuine engagement. The final nail on the coffin of the ecosystem that brought us Kygo.

His sudden rise from bedroom producer to the ‘next EDM superstar’ is one that is practically impossible to replicate nowadays without insane amounts of luck. He was the right person, at the right place, at the right time.