SIDEPIECE, the GRAMMY Award-nominated dance duo comprised of multi-million streaming DJ/producers NITTI (Ricky Mears) and Party Favor (Dylan Ragland) – make their long-awaited Big Beat Records debut with the brand new club anthem, ‘Reborn’, available now.
SIDEPIECE are currently lighting up clubs around the world on their epic Kiss and Tell: Second Base tour, with headline dates scheduled through February 2023. The international trek – which follows the duo’s sold-out Kiss and Tell headline tour earlier this year – includes a sold-out special guest performance alongside ZHU at Morrison and CO’s famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre. An exclusive Kiss and Tell: Second Base tour trailer, soundtracked by ‘Reborn’, can be viewed now at the official SIDEPIECE Instagram here. For complete details and remaining ticket information, please visit youasidepiece.com.
While Dylan Ragland and Ricky Mears meant to start a side project, they weren’t totally expecting to create SIDEPIECE, the GRAMMY-nominated house duo that’s clocked more than 362 million global streams since its inception.
The two producers – Ragland makes music as fan favorite Party Favor and Mears produces as dancefloor igniter NITTI – first linked via DM in 2019 to share track ideas. Sensing their musical chemistry, they jumped on Facetime. By the end of the call, they’d registered the @youasidepiece social handles and their own figurative side piece had been born.
“It started out as a fun passion project because we both love and care about house music,” says Ragland, “but it’s grown so much bigger than we originally planned.”
Indeed, success came fast for the pair. SIDEPIECE’s second single, the 2020 Diplo collaboration ‘On My Mind’, aggregated more than 222 million Spotify streams and earned the trio a 2021 GRAMMY nomination for Best Dance Recording. A flurry of hit singles have followed, with SIDEPIECE carving out a signature sound rooted in catchy vocals – “the most important element,” says Ragland – and the ever-intoxicating bump and grindhouse groove. Spanning tech house, bass house, and beyond, tracks including ‘Acrobatic’, ‘Temptation’, ‘Sextacy’, and their latest, the steamy dancefloor heater ‘Reborn‘, are quintessentially SIDEPIECE: party-starting club records with a pop-lean and serious sex appeal.
“Huge streaming numbers are cool,” says Mears, “but seeing people in the crowd singing along to the song, that makes it all feel real.”
photo credit: Jimmy Fontaine
