Nick Halkes (born Nigel Halkes) is a UK based music industry executive best known for signing a breaking dance act the Prodigy and being one of the founders of the

XL Recordings XL Recordings is a British independent record label founded in 1989 by Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes. It has been ran and co-owned by Richard Russell since 1996. It forms part of the Beggars Group. Although only releasing an average of six albu ...

label. He is now an artist manager and music publisher managing

Liam Howlett Liam Paul Paris Howlett (born 21 August 1971) is an English record producer, musician, songwriter, co-founder and leader of the British electronic band The Prodigy, and an occasional DJ. Early years Howlett was born in Braintree, Essex, En ...

( the Prodigy),

Bad Company UK Bad Company, Bad Company UK or simply BC (stylized as ƆEIƎC) is the stage name of the English drum and bass record producers Jason Maldini (Maldini), Michael Wojcicki (Vegas), Dan Stein (DJ Fresh) and Darren White (dBridge). The abbreviat ...

and more. Halkes previously managed Grammy nominated Engine-EarZ Experiment,

DJ Fresh Daniel Edward Stein (born 11 April 1977), better known by his stage name DJ Fresh, is an English musician, DJ, record producer, best known for making electronic music. He is one of the principal members of the drum and bass group Bad Company, ...

and Stanton Warriors. Over recent years as a manager Halkes has also worked with DJ René LaVice. He is also a part time lecturer on the music industry at the prestigious

University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Polyte ...

. Currently he does guest lectures at a variety of UK educational institutions including Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

London College of Creative Media London College of Creative Media (LCCM) is a private college of higher education in South London offering undergraduate degrees in music, writing, and music management; a postgraduate degree in creative entrepreneurship; and shorter courses in m ...

(

Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies is a specialist education provider with courses in Games, Film & TV, Media, Events, Esports, and Music. It offers both college and degree level courses, and is part of Nottingham Trent University and Not ...

(

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...

), Tileyard Education (

), Notting Hill Academy of Music (

Birmingham City University , mottoeng = "Do what you are doing; attend to your business" , established = 1992—gained university status1971—City of Birmingham Polytechnic1843—Birmingham College of Art , type = Public , affiliation = ...

Point Blank Point-blank range is any distance over which a certain firearm can hit a target without the need to compensate for bullet drop, and can be adjusted over a wide range of distances by sighting in the firearm. If the bullet leaves the barrel paral ...

(

), BIMM ( Brighton and

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

) and more. He runs the Reach Up club night and radio show with a partner Andy Smith, Crissy Kybosh is no longer involved in Reach Up. As DJ/producer "Nick Reach Up" he has officially remixed Kylie single Magic,

Mel C Melanie Jayne Chisholm (12 January 1974 - 25 December 2022), better known as Melanie C or Mel C, is an English singer-songwriter and media personality. She is best known as one of the five members of the Spice Girls, during which time she was n ...

, Degrees of Motion, Xpansions - "Move Your Body" and many more. Nick has played multiple festivals including

Bestival Bestival was a four-day music festival held in the south of England. It had been held annually in the late summer since 2004 at Robin Hill on the Isle of Wight. In 2017 the festival relocated to the Lulworth Estate in Dorset. The event was organ ...

, Shindig, Eastern Electrics, Beautiful Days, Bluedot and more.

Career

Along with Richard Russell, he formed early rave duo Kicks Like a Mule, enjoying chart success in 1992 with their debut single, " The Bouncer". This track was covered by fledgling new-rave outfit

Klaxons Klaxons were an English rock band, based in London. Following the release of several 7-inch singles on different independent record labels, as well as the success of previous singles " Magick" and "Golden Skans", the band released their debut ...

in 2006. Halkes has enjoyed major A&R success with the Prodigy in recent years with the album '' Invaders Must Die'' on which he co-wrote the title track and the subsequent album ''

The Day Is My Enemy ''The Day Is My Enemy'' is the sixth studio album by English electronic music group the Prodigy. It was released on 30 March 2015 by record labels Take Me to the Hospital/Cooking Vinyl in the UK and Three Six Zero Music/ Warner Bros. Records in t ...

'' on which he co-wrote three tracks. Halkes was one of the founders of independent record label

where he signed and worked with acts such as

House of Pain House of Pain was an American hip-hop trio that released three albums in the 1990s. The group consisted of DJ Lethal, Danny Boy, and Everlast. The group's name is a reference to the H. G. Wells novel '' The Island of Dr. Moreau'', a refer ...

, SL2 and Liquid before taking up a position as a director at EMI and launching the

Positiva Positiva Records is a subsidiary of Universal Music Group and concentrates on releasing dance music in the UK. The record label was set up in 1993, by Nick Halkes, who previously ran XL Recordings. Its headquarters are at the Universal UK ...

label (developed that label into a powerhouse imprint), then later the

Incentive In general, incentives are anything that persuade a person to alter their behaviour. It is emphasised that incentives matter by the basic law of economists and the laws of behaviour, which state that higher incentives amount to greater levels of ...

label. The Positiva label enjoyed significant success under Halkes' leadership with artists such as

Reel 2 Real Reel 2 Real was an American hip house musical project that had seven top 10 hits on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the 1990s. Biography The project's core member was producer and DJ Erick Morillo from New York City, who spent a por ...

Alice Deejay Alice Deejay is a Dutch Eurodance-pop project founded and produced by Wessel van Diepen, Dennis van den Driesschen, Sebastiaan Molijn and Eelke Kalberg (Pronti & Kalmani), fronted by singer Judith Anna Pronk. They are best known for their 1999 s ...

the Bucketheads Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez (born July 5, 1970), also sometimes known as K-Dope, is an American record producer and disc jockey. He is one half of the classic house music Masters at Work musical production team with Little Louie Vega; and also releas ...

and more and is now home to

David Guetta Pierre David Guetta ( , ; born 7 November 1967) is a French DJ and music producer. He has over 10 million album and 65 million single sales globally, with more than 10 billion streams. In 2011, 2020 and 2021, Guetta was voted the number one D ...

and

Deadmau5 Joel Thomas Zimmerman (born January 5, 1981), known professionally as Deadmau5 (stylized as deadmau5; pronounced "dead-mouse"), is a Canadian electronic music producer and DJ. He mainly produces progressive house music, though he also produce ...

, amongst others. Halkes has a track record for signing and developing dance and electronic talent that stretches across three decades. Halkes has also overseen the careers of developing artists Catchment, One Bit and Engine-EarZ Experiment. He records sporadically under the Horx moniker. Amongst the publishing signings to Halkes’ JV with Sentric Music Group are northern writer and producer team PBH & JACK. They are the first to sign an exclusive songwriting agreement as a result of the partnership. Irish artist, producer/DJ

Elaine Mai Elaine Mai is a songwriter, musician, and producer from County Mayo, Ireland, now based in Dublin. Mai has been referred to as "one of Ireland's top electronic music producers" by RTE Radio One and Today FM. In January 2022, her debut album ''Ho ...

who was nominated for the song of the year and the album of the year 2021 in the

RTÉ Choice RTÉ Choice was a digital radio station of the Irish public-service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), made specifically for talk-radio. RTÉ realigned their digital radio services in 2013 and much of the content on RTÉ Choice b ...

Music Prize in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, has signed an exclusive publishing deal with Nick Halkes and his joint venture with Sentric Music Group. Nick co-produces and co-hosts a successful

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

series called Trailblazers: Electronic Pioneers

with

Eddy Temple-Morris Edward Owen Kayvan Temple-Morris (born 26 April 1965 in Cardiff) is a British DJ, record producer and TV presenter. He hosted London radio station XFM's specialist show ''The Remix'' for 15 years,Trailblazers: Electronic Pioneers, featuring Carl Cox

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Halkes, Nick British music industry executives Living people A&R people English electronic musicians English record producers Year of birth missing (living people)