Loco Dice
About Loco Dice
Loco Dice is the alias of electronic music producer and DJ Yassine Ben Achour, born in Düsseldorf, Germany as the son of Tunisian immigrants. The roots of his love for music stem from hearing soul and funk in the kitchen, and holidays with his mother in Tunisia. During these trips, he absorbed North African and Middle Eastern folk music influences. He also snuck away to watch his grandfather playing backgammon on the streets where he managed to walk away with enough pieces of dice that he eventually accumulated his own personal collection. This is how he earned his infamous nickname that eventually was combined with Loco which, was coined from the days spent in Ibiza during the 90’s… but that’s another story. The streets of Flingern in Düsseldorf and youth clubs were important during the formative years, with a strong influence from hip hop culture – from dancing to Beat Street and Michael Jackson, graffiti tagging, to rapping in the 90’s and touring with Ice Cube. Already with a few releases under his belt, this brought him recognition by the infamous Death Row Records who asked him to go on tour with Snoop Dogg. The DJing came later through tireless hours of searching for new music and practicing. In 1998, after several singles, and residencies in the top European hip hop clubs, Loco Dice discovered the world of electronic music and ventures onto a new path from scratch. One of the key figures from that time was Timo Maas with whom Loco Dice got his first taste of touring around the world and the other one was Martin Buttrich, who opened up the world of electronic music production. His first release in the electronic realm was “Phat Dope shit” in 2002. What followed were releases on the top labels in the industry as well as remixes for the likes of Mousse T, Kevin Saunderson, Basement Jaxx, Black Coffee, Terre Thaemlitz, Nightmares On Wax, Moby, Disclosure, Skrillex, Boys Noize and Ty Dolla $ign to name a few. In 2006, Loco Dice really started to make some noise in the scene as he released tracks on the most respected labels such as M_nus, Cadenza, Ovum, and Cocoon all in that same year. That year also involved a brief relocation to Brooklyn where he created his label Desolat. “7 Dunham Place”, his debut album and inaugural release on the new imprint in 2007 encapsulates his time there. Dice’s second album, "Underground Sound Suicide" was released in 2016 on Ultra Music, and featured collaborations with notable artists across the spectrum, including heavyweight hiphop producer Just Blaze, British rapper Giggs and soul icon Neneh Cherry. [1]