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\n\nhree years ago a mysterious man arrived at Los Angeles International Airport with his head encased in a rigid 13.5-pound helmet shaped like a marshmallow. He reluctantly removed the fragile apparatus at the behest of a TSA agent and fed it through an x-ray machine. When he went to retrieve it, his worst fears were confirmed.
\n\n\u201cIt was cracked,\u201d the headpiece\u2019s owner, incognito DJ-producer Marshmello, told Forbes in a rare interview.
\n\nNowadays he can afford to fly private. Marshmello earned $44 million over the past two years, thanks to six-figure nightly fees and crossover hits like \u201cHappier\u201d (with Bastille) and \u201cWolves\u201d (with Selena Gomez). Puffed up by his series \u201cCooking With Marshmello,\u201d his YouTube channel is now the 50th largest on the planet\u2014behind Bruno Mars and ahead of Maroon 5\u2014averaging 250 million views and 1.4 million new subscribers every month.
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For more on the next generation of leaders, see Forbes' 30 Under 30 coverage.
\u201cWhat sets the world\u2019s greatest DJs apart is that they are also great producers and songwriters, creating songs that transcend genre and appeal to a global pop audience,\u201d says Robb McDaniels, CEO of Beatport, the electronic music hub. \u201cMarshmello is one of the select few who have defined this generation.\u201d
\n\nSuccess has allowed Marshmello to upgrade to a $55,000 helmet that has an internal air-conditioning system and programmable LED lights and weighs just eight pounds. More important, the headgear has turned into a transcendent symbol that has placed Marshmello among the world\u2019s five highest-earning DJs even as he refuses to obey the music industry\u2019s rules: He still hasn\u2019t signed a major label record deal, much less shown his face in public.
The November 30, 2018 issue of Forbes featuring Marshmello.
\u201cFor us it was, how do you create a brand that is accessible to everybody, that everyone can be and relate to?\u201d says Marshmello\u2019s manager, Moe Shalizi, who lands on our new 30 Under 30 list; his client graces the cover. \u201cThe concept we had in mind with Mello was, How do you create a universal character?\u201d
\nThe story begins in 2015, when the young DJ and Shalizi\u2014who met Marshmello while he was still experimenting with different sounds and identities online\u2014picked the name Marshmello in a nod to his music\u2019s mellow feel (during the 30 Under 30 vetting process last year, Forbes confirmed his age, 26, and full name, Chris Comstock).
\nTo this day, the DJ has never publicly acknowledged any biographical information. And when Marshmello made his musical debut, releasing a free download every few days for three weeks via Soundcloud, the mystery helped supercharge his popularity. Electronic music fans on Reddit became obsessed with discovering his identity, as did some of the genre\u2019s superstars\u2014like Skrillex, the earliest high-profile booster of his music.
\u201cI need to know who Marshmello is,\u201d Shalizi remembers Skrillex demanding. \u201cI'm going through some stuff in my life and I really need to know who he is because the music is helping me.\u201d
\nBut Shalizi\u2019s client wanted to remain anonymous and didn\u2019t seem particularly interested in fame. Even after he started texting Skrillex, Marshmello was so shy that he initially refused to contact his hero about an in-person meeting. \u201cSkrillex [is] the guy who I've been looking up to ever since I started doing electronic music,\u201d Marshmello recalls telling Shalizi as they cruised through Los Angeles. \u201cI'm not just going to call him.\u201d Shalizi stopped the car. \u201cI\u2019m not going to go until you call him,\u201d the manager replied.
\nMarshmello relented\u2014and found a surprise on the other end of the line: Katie Couric, who happened to be interviewing Skrillex for Yahoo on camera. (\u201cIt\u2019s Chris,\u201d she noted as the caller ID flashed onscreen. \u201cOh, Marshmello,\u201d Skrillex replied). A week later the video interview went public\u2014and Marshmello\u2019s growing legion of fans got their first clue to his identity. Internet conspiracy theorists posited that he was actually a rotating cast of famous DJs including Skrillex, Martin Garrix and Ti\u00ebsto (the latter trolled electronic music enthusiasts by showing up to a gig in a Marshmello mask).
Shalizi insists Marshmello will earn around $50 million in 2019, which would put him on par with this year\u2019s top earner, Calvin Harris.
The buzz only helped drive Marshmello\u2019s earning power: In late 2015, he took home $30,000 for his first major gig, a Halloween show in New York. Then Shalizi planned a tour, focusing on small clubs that would sell out and drive demand. Marshmello earned scores of new fans\u2014and grew his social media presence (he now boasts 7 million followers between Twitter and Facebook)\u2014by spending hours posing for selfies after shows.
Marshmello got a boost from Coachella in 2016 even though he didn\u2019t play the festival. Shalizi rented a nearby highway billboard and splashed an image of the DJ across it. Then he hired two bodyguards and a photographer to follow Marshmello around the festival, where he posed with celebrities like Zedd and DJ Khaled. \u201cA year in, we already had over a million followers on Instagram,\u201d says Shalizi (today\u2019s count: 13.7 million). Marshmello returned to Coachella in 2017 and headlined the Sahara Tent, the festival's premier electronic stage.
\nHis 2016 breakout hit, \u201cAlone,\u201d racked up 1 billion views on YouTube; his first album, Joytime (2016), reached No. 5 on the U.S. Dance charts. Major labels came calling with multimillion-dollar record deals, but Marshmello and Shalizi weren\u2019t convinced that giving up their independence was worth it. \u201cThey wanted to sign us just to sign us,\u201d says the DJ.
\nMarshmello stayed independent and struck deals on a song-by-song basis, making it easy for him to collaborate with artists on different labels. Keeping control of his copyrights enabled him to further goose his social presence by giving influencers his music to use in their videos. In turn, they would tag him, thereby introducing him to their followers. This was part of what Shalizi likes to call \u201cinfinite algorithm\u201d of social media.
To be sure, Marshmello isn\u2019t the first DJ to cash in on a mysterious image\u2014he follows in the helmet-steps of electronic acts like Deadmau5 and Daft Punk\u2014but his earnings total over the past year ranks as the best annual haul for an incognito DJ ever measured by Forbes.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s less about the masks and more about the actual talent,\u201d Beatport\u2019s McDaniels says of Marshmello. \u201cHe\u2019s certainly got a long career in music ahead of him.\u201d
\nSure enough, his latest album, Joytime II, claimed the top spot on the dance charts this year. Shalizi insists Marshmello will earn around $50 million in 2019, which would put him on par with this year\u2019s top earner, Calvin Harris. The young manager entertains even wilder dreams. \u201cWe always talk about taking Marshmello public one day,\u201d says Shalizi, referring to turning the DJ\u2019s business into a publicly traded company. \u201cHe can do anything.\u201d
\u201cWhat sets the world\u2019s greatest DJs apart is that they are also great producers and songwriters, creating songs that transcend genre and appeal to a global pop audience,\u201d says Robb McDaniels.
Though that may be a bit far-fetched, Marshmello has certainly built a DJ business with room to grow. Like Marvel\u2019s stable of superheroes, his image is one onto which anyone anywhere can project their hopes and dreams\u2014Shalizi says his biggest markets range from Brazil to Singapore. Marshmello connects by nodding to local favorites, playing Bollywood theme songs at New Delhi gigs or posting Indonesian fried rice recipes on \u201cCooking With Marshmello\u201d for his Jakarta fans.
\nAnd, in theory, Marshmello is infinitely scalable. Imagine an army of confectionary clones fanning out across the globe, paying Marshmello a cut of their nightly fees. Just don\u2019t bet on that last part happening.
\n\u201cSometimes we talk to people and they\u2019re surprised we aren\u2019t doing that,\u201d explains Marshmello. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, That\u2019s not why I did this.\u201d
\nReach Zack O'Malley Greenburg at zgreenburg@forbes.com. Cover image by Jamel Toppin for Forbes. Marshmello pictured wearing Ermenegildo Zegna Couture.
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