Alok has a new musical alias, Something Else, with which the Brazilian superstar marks a significant departure from his usual, more pop-leaning work, Billboard can exclusively announce.
“When you think about Something Else, the idea that I had, [it’s that] I really love to connect with people. Sometimes when you get into a certain level of your career, [you find] you cannot fit into these places. I feel that Something Else gives me the freedom to express my creativity in different places,” Alok tells Billboard Español in a Zoom call. “It gives me the opportunity to go to places where Alok wouldn’t fit, but my heart fits. Even though Alok is my name, it’s my project, I really respect what we have build up with Alok. That’s always gonna be my main goal. But I also feel that my heart fits into other places as well.”
Known globally for his electrifying electronic pop anthems that have captivated millions, Alok, who launched his career 20 years ago, is branching outside of pop territory, and returning closer to his “psych trance and underground” roots. He debuted his latest venture Something Else to fans last year at global festivals such as the Universo Paralello in Brazil and the Zamna Tulum Festival in Mexico.
The announcement of his new project arrives with the release of “Miçanga”, a tropical house remix of an eponymous BaianaSystem track of which Billboard Español offers the first exclusive stream. Created under his new moniker, the artist joins Stephan Jolk and Kawz in this collaboration with BaianaSystem, five years after the release of the original song. “I felt that this [song] could really fit in our universe,” he says. “[BaianaSystem] does very solid conceptual work that is singular and unique.”
The inspiration for the new DJ/producer project arrived when he performed at his brother’s wedding in Thailand for about a small group of 50 family and friends. “We just started to play, and it was all about the vibe. It was all about just being there and connecting in a very introspective way. I missed that so much,” he says. “I don’t wanna say [Something Else] is one kind of style of genre. I just wanna be like, it’s something else from the ‘Alok’ and ‘pop’ that you saw at Belém.”
Last November, Alok — famed for pioneering and popularizing Brazilian bass on a global scale — performed a massive concert at the Mangueirão Olympic Stadium’s parking lot in Belém, Pará in northern Brazil, to kick off the one-year countdown of COP30 which will take place in said city this year. Just 100 miles south of the equator and close to the Amazon rainforest, 250,000 attendees arrived to experience is AUREA show, where he stood above a ten-story-high pyramid stage.
The “Hear Me Now” hitmaker gave his fanbase a taste of his more experimental side with his 2024 album, The Future Is Ancestral, where he collaborated with the Yawanawa tribe of Brazil, and other indigenous poets, scholars and musicians. “It’s also totally, completely different from what Alok releases,” he adds.
“With Something Else, with ‘Miçanga,’ for example, it’s just a place where I don’t have to be pressured. I can just do stuff that I like, even though I know they won’t work in the same [way] as Alok’s songs,” he adds. “But at the end of the day, I feel that as a DJ, and all DJs, we are here to serve. We’re here to please people. And to do stuff that we believe, stuff that we like.”
In April, the two-time Latin Grammy nominee will make his Coachella debut.
Check out Something Else, Stephan Jolk, and Kawz’s “Miçanga” featuring BaianaSystem below.