Today we’d like to introduce you to Santiago Hoyos.
Hi Santiago, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
My passion for music started in a small village on the high mountains of Colombia, I was turning 5 years old and my mom gave me a little drum set for my birthday so I could use at home for fun after kindergarten, she just thought it was going to be a little fun activity or distraction for me. The magic happened the same day when one of my cousins, which he was a musician himself, having played different native Colombian wind instruments, started teaching me how to play a Colombian song on a flute made of bamboo. He started showing me how to place my mouth on the flute and then started showing me the actual notes from the song, so that’s what I did, I grabbed the flute and started playing the same song without any problem, not as good as him but good enough for my family to know that I had a natural ear and talent, and it clicked to me, and that’s what I wanted to keep doing, Music.
At the age of 8, I joined the local symphonic band where I learned how to play the drums and a few months after learned how to play the trumpet, which is an instrument that I still play. Band was my second home; I would go to school in the morning and then spend the rest of the afternoon at the music school playing and learning with my friends. I would do this every day, 6 days a week for around 4 hours. At school I was a quiet kid, I did not talk too much because of all the creative stuff inside my mind, I would always see myself playing at big concerts for thousands of people, that was my drive, thinking about making people’s life better with my sound. When I was 11 my friend showed me at school a different kind of music, Electronic Dance Music, and my mind couldn’t believe what my ears were listening to, it was so energetic, aggressive, beautiful, etc, it was like a whole dopamine shot for my brain, so I started digging more throughout the internet for more music and videos and I learned that the producers that made those songs were also DJ’s and they were also playing at the biggest music festivals, traveling, making new music, meeting new people, and so much more! My dad gave a DJ controller as well so I could practice, the whole concept of being a DJ just caught my attention and I realized that was my dream, and I was going to work for it.
Syncet was created from the concept of connecting people through my music, It means ‘Sync the earth’ (Sync is an option from the majority of DJ equipment and is used to sync both songs on the same beat) and my logo which is a plus sign and a heart add to the meaning as “More love will sync the earth”, I created my DJ concept when I was 12 and from there started playing around with my computer and mixing different songs to show it to my friends, which they really liked.
Everything changed when at the age of 15 a family member helped me joined a DJ academy, it was a 5-month program, 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, we covered everything from History of electronic music to the digital era, everything from mixing with analog turntables to digital Turntables, all the knowledge, and techniques that I use now was learned at the academy. I was really happy with the academy but I was missing something, I was missing playing for a real crowd of people, so I started emailing and texting different festival companies and events throughout Colombia and there was one that reached out to me, Family Magic And Color, an EDM festival big enough and known that was willing to work with me and that truly believed in me, we did a small tour around Colombia that lasted 5 months, 5 different cities, 5 shows; I got to travel playing music just being 15 years old which not a lot of young DJ’s get to experience and I did, so I’m super grateful for all the hardworking people that I worked with. We saw in total 30,000 during the 5 shows and gained lots of new fans, usually my mom and my friends would come with me so they could enjoy too.
When I turned 16, I came to Tampa to attend high school, it felt like my career was going to start from zero, but I started doing what I was good at, making music and DJ, from there I met the right people at the right time, amazing individuals that I work with now as a collective, called LCD entertainment, I can’t be more grateful for the whole team. Thanks to the last 3 years of music and personal growth in United States, I’ve had the opportunity to play in cities like Miami, Atlanta, Orlando, and specially Tampa Bay.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Anything that you want in life comes with a lot of sacrifice, I learned this from playing different sports, and throughout my music career, there is thousands of hours of practice, countless shows where you are probably playing for one person of even for yourself, there is been a lot of mistakes, stress, long nights, busy days and more, but it’s something that naturally needs to happen for you to learn. I am grateful for all the people that helped me through the process, my parents, all the mentors/teachers that I’ve had, my amazing team, all the people that like what I do, you know, I’m grateful with the journey. I remember that the first studio that my friends and I tried to build was made out of brick walls, cheap equipment, egg panels, the sound system from my grandma, and a laptop that did not support my music program; seeing all the growth and improvement that we’ve had is just more motivation to keep going.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I make Electronic Dance Music because that’s my main genre, but I also produce: Hip Hop, reggaeton, R&B, and do film scoring, I usually put all this in practice when I work with artist from Tampa and outside of Tampa as well. My main goal is to show people the stages of my creative mind and why I make the things I make, finding your signature sound is a key component for your success, so I’m still figuring out how I can mix all my favorite sounds from classical music and Urban music to my main genre EDM. People usually meet me at the shows when I play and tell me how good my set was, it’s always good to hear that your passion inspires other people to do things; one day when I was finishing playing at the festival back in Colombia, a kid, probably 9 years old approaches me by telling me ‘I want to be like you one day’ we took a picture and he left with a smile on his face. Those are honestly the things that I value the most and the things that inspire me as well.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
I’ve had probably more than 7 music teachers that helped me learn a lot about instruments and music as a whole, I’ve had one DJ mentor who I can’t be more grateful with, my family played a huge role on my career, my manager Slater Colt is been one of the most helpful individual including my whole team LCD, my cousin Daniel Londono who is the person that I work the most in music and spend most of my time with, and also all my coaches from sports that also understood and helped with my music career. I could probably spend a lot of paragraphs thanking all these amazing people.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/syncetdj/
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/syncetdj
Image Credits
Ariana Raquel
Cyan Chris Cruz
