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DJ Snake has never been one for subtlety. The French-Algerian producer cemented his career with maximalist bangers from “Turn Down for What,” to “Lean On,” and “Taki Taki”, tracks designed to detonate dancefloors and dominate festival stages. With over 30 billion streams and two platinum albums (Encore and Carte Blanche) behind him, William Grigahcine could easily coast on formula. Instead, Nomad finds him leaning into the restless, genre-hopping impulses that have always defined his work, even when they threaten to overwhelm the album’s cohesion.
“I grew up surrounded by people from India, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East,” DJ Snake explains. “That mix shaped everything I heard. Nomad is a tribute to that upbringing.” That biographical detail is the album’s organising principle. Across 17 tracks (a generous track count in an era of streaming-optimised brevity), DJ Snake attempts nothing less than a sonic atlas, touching down in reggaeton, K-pop, Egyptian shaabi, Malian blues, trap, and big room EDM, often within the same five-minute span.
The title track opens the album with unusual restraint: ominous synth swells, sparse percussion, and vocal fragments that evoke both Saharan desert winds and the ambient comedown of a 6 a.m. afterparty. It’s a surprising introduction from a producer known for instant gratification, suggesting Nomad might chart a more introspective course. That notion evaporates seconds into track two.
“Noventa” reunites DJ Snake with J Balvin, his frequent collaborator and our ICON Sounds cover star. The chemistry between the two remains undeniable; Balvin’s relaxed, melodic flow glides over DJ Snake’s crisp dembow rhythms and laser-synth flourishes. It’s familiar territory for both artists, but executed with the confidence of veterans who know exactly what works.
DJ Snake’s curatorial instincts drive much of Nomad‘s appeal and occasional unevenness. Thirteen different artists appear across the album’s 17 tracks, leaving only five tracks as solo productions (not counting “Final Fantasy,” which features The Outlaw, DJ Snake’s bass-heavy alter ego making its debut). This collaborative approach yields some of the album’s most intriguing moments. “In The Dark,” featuring K-pop juggernauts Stray Kids, merges the group’s high-octane vocal acrobatics with DJ Snake’s knack for dramatic builds and satisfying drops. It’s a cross-cultural experiment that actually works, avoiding the pitfalls of superficial East-meets-West fusion by letting both artists operate at full strength.
Elsewhere, DJ Snake engages in sonic archaeology, excavating unexpected samples and flipping them for the dancefloor. “Paradise,” featuring Bipolar Sunshine, reimagines Phil Collins’s “Another Day in Paradise” as a buoyant, sun-drenched pop confection. The result is lighter fare that offers a breather from the album’s more intense moments. More successful is “Reloaded” with Space Laces, which weaponises Marilyn Manson’s “This Is the New Sh*t” into grinding, industrial-strength bass music. The track walks a fine line between homage and obliteration, ultimately landing somewhere in between.
“Patience” demonstrates DJ Snake’s most thoughtful sampling, building around Amadou & Mariam’s iconic “Sable.” The Malian duo’s distinctive guitar work and vocals are treated with reverence, woven into DJ Snake’s production rather than simply chopped and looped. It’s one of several moments where the producer’s multicultural bona fides feel genuinely earned rather than performative. The song was beautifully visualised as an 11-minute short film, shot in Senegal and directed by Valentin Guiod, and released earlier this summer summer.
“Cairo Express” stands as the album’s most audacious cultural deep dive. It almost feels like it could easily be “Disco Maghreb”’s twin. Drawing from Egyptian shaabi, the gritty dance music of Cairo’s streets, DJ Snake crafts a track that pulses with authenticity that suggests real research and respect.
At 17 tracks, Nomad occasionally feels more like an artistic statement than a playlist. “Bring The House Down,” featuring Dillon Francis and TRXGXX, delivers the trap-influenced chaos that defined DJ Snake’s breakthrough, all clattering hi-hats, bass drops, and controlled mayhem. It’s exhilarating in isolation but feels at odds with the more contemplative or culturally specific moments elsewhere on the album.
“Final Fantasy,” the closing track, unfolds with unusual patience, building through melancholic chord progressions and filtered vocals before finally delivering the cathartic drop. It’s the moment in the club when everything slows down and crystallises, when the music becomes about feeling rather than moving. It’s also a reminder that DJ Snake’s populist approach, his ability to create music that moves bodies without condescension or cynicism, is itself a kind of artistic vision.
In a landscape increasingly defined by algorithmic playlisting and hyper-targeted micro-genres, Nomad feels deliberately out of step. It’s an album-length argument for omnivorous listening, for the idea that a single artist can credibly move between Colombian dembow, Korean pop, Egyptian street music, and American trap without dilution. Whether that argument is entirely convincing depends on how much you value ambition over focus, breadth over depth.
DJ Snake isn’t making a utopian claim about music’s power to unite us. But Nomad does suggest that in a polarised world, there’s value in music where diverse audiences might recognise themselves, even briefly, even just for the length of a drop.
