Santiago Cortés is a Latino-Swiss musician and composer. He has been producing music for TV and film, and doing regular
DJ dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded da ...
gigs in the US, South America, Italy, Spain and Asia, since 1991.
During 1997–2000, Cortés completed his education as a
sound engineer
An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproductio ...
and founded his own SMP label in 2005. In producing his debut album, ''Welcome to My Airline'', released in September 2005, he collaborated with musicians, engineers and producers in Europe and abroad, such as the lead singer Sonnie "Skip" Martin (
Grammy winner, New York) from
Kool & the Gang
Kool & the Gang is an American R&B/soul/funk band formed in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1964 by brothers Robert "Kool" Bell and Ronald Bell, with Dennis "Dee Tee" Thomas, Robert "Spike" Mickens, Charles Smith, George Brown, and Ricky West. ...
and "Tony Martinez and the Cuban Power" (two time Grammy nominee, New York).
For his second album, ''First Class'', he worked with various artists in the genre of
house music, including Kim Cooper (
Defected Records
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
), Lynn Lockamy and Phil Dankner.
Cortés had a Number 1 hit single and
music video
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
in early 2005 with "Don't Leave Me". It was accepted for N1 rotation on
Viva Switzerland
VIVA Schweiz was a TV channel which timeshared with Nickelodeon Switzerland and featured music videos and quizzes. It launched on 6 September 2000. The channel served German-speaking regions in Switzerland. It closed on 31 December 2018, along wi ...
and on
Latin-MTV in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
, and made the Swiss Top 40 within one week of air play. His second single, "Superstar", released in September 2005, also made the Swiss Top 40 within one week. Late in January 2006 his third single, "Saturday", was released in combination with a new music video. "Crazy" also reached Number 1. Cortés then began working on his third album, ''In the Mix''.
Cortés has an international network which allows him to work on an international level, based on a wide repertoire of artists. He joined
Radio 105, the leading Swiss youth radio, to produce his own radio show every Friday evening. He is the first Swiss musician having his own platform in
SecondLife.com. His club, "First Class", is frequently visited.
Beside his production activities, Cortés still enjoys bookings as a DJ such as Resident-DJ in "White Nights" at
Club Amnesia Ibiza, at Kaufleuten Zuerich (CH) or 90° Berlin (D) which allows him to be very close to the development in dance and house music.
Discography
Singles
* "Don't Leave Me" (2005)
* "Superstar" (with
Wonderland) (2005)
Albums
* ''
Welcome To My Airline'' (2005)
References
Swiss record producers
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
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