HUGEL
Florent Hugel is a French DJ and producer from Marseille who began spinning records in local clubs as a teenager and broke through internationally in 2018 with a house remix of the Italian folk song 'Bella Ciao.' Raised on his mother's funk, soul and disco records and drawn to French electronic music, he built a signature sound around percussive, Latin- and Afro-inflected house, and his 2021 single 'Morenita' with Cumbiafrica helped push that Latin-house style onto dancefloors worldwide. By the mid-2020s, with the crossover hit 'I Adore You,' he had become a fixture of Ibiza residencies and global festival stages.
Wikipedia lists Daft Punk among the artists who first drew Hugel toward electronic dance music, and that French-house heritage surfaces in his taste for a relentless four-on-the-floor pulse, filtered disco warmth and a vocal hook looped until it turns hypnotic.
listen forPlay Daft Punk's 'One More Time' and then Hugel's 'I Adore You' and listen for the same trick: a single sweetened, processed vocal phrase ridden over a bright, insistent house beat until the hook itself becomes the drop.
Hugel names Laurent Garnier among his early inspirations, and Garnier's model of the percussive, peak-time European house record, built for a long physical rise rather than a quick pop payoff, echoes in Hugel's tribal, drum-forward productions.
listen forCue Garnier's 'The Man with the Red Face' next to Hugel's 'Morenita' and notice how both let hand percussion and a single riff churn and intensify over minutes, keeping the crowd suspended on the groove itself.
Carl Cox appears in the same list of Hugel's formative electronic influences, and his brand of driving, bass-heavy tech house, where the drums and low end do the work, informs the raw, club-first energy of Hugel's most percussive tracks.
listen forSet Cox's early rave anthem 'I Want You (Forever)' against Hugel's 'El Sueño' and hear the shared engine: a thick, rolling bassline and stripped tribal drum pattern built to keep a floor moving without pause.