Riton

Henry Smithson aka Riton is hailed as one of the UK’s brightest and established talents with a formidable career as a DJ, remixer and Producer. Whether it’s his pulsating DJ sets, genre crashing collaborations or the multitude of original productions and remixes, Riton has gathered accolades from every corner of the globe. His enchanting remix touch has breathed new life into artists such as M.I.A and Kylie Minogue while his own releases have seen him collaborate with the likes of Mr Eazi, MNEK and Kah-Lo.

Born in Newcastle and raised in Manchester, Riton first ventured into music shortly after graduating from University where he set up his own label and began working at the Shindig nightclub in Newcastle. Early releases between 2000 and 2005 saw him working and collaborating with a variety of local talents before setting up London residencies at 333 and Nightmoves with Ben Fat Tucker. In 2008, he released ‘Eine Kleine Nacht Musik’ – a more down tempo homage to his Krautrock influences. Created with legendary Belgian outfit Soulwax, the project aptly showcasing another side to Riton’s prolific musical creativity and earned the title of ‘Album of the Year’ from DJ Mag. A year later saw the release of his collaboration with Primary 1 titled ‘Who’s There’ as well a stream of critically acclaimed remixes including his much-praised remix of Kid Sister’s ‘Right Hand HI’.

In 2010, Riton launched one of his most notable projects. ‘Carte Blanche’; created with DJ Medhi, included the club smash ‘Gare Du Nord’ – which to date is still one of Ed Banger Records’ biggest selling records to date as well as the catchy ‘Do! Do! Do!’ featuring Kid Sister and resulted in two projects in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The pair toured extensively while Riton also created remixes for the likes of Scissor Sisters, Uffie and Chromeo. Venturing solo once again, 2013 saw the release of the ‘Lost My Mind’ EP, the ‘Bad Guy Ri Ri’ EP in 2014 and, after remixing her single ‘All Or Nothing’ in 2015, Riton appeared alongside Elliphant in a commercial for the Apple iPad. 

2016 took Riton’s successes to new heights with the release of ‘Rinse & Repeat’ an exciting & unique underground dance hit featuring the vocals of rising Nigeria-born artist Kah-Lo, crafted during a six-month period where Riton temporarily moved to New York City. Starting life as a club hit, ‘Rinse & Repeat’ went on to become one of the top 10 most played records on BBC Radio 1 for the year. It’s success crossed over into the Official Charts, hitting the top 20 in the summer of that year and earned a nomination at the 2017 Grammy Awards for Best Dance Recording. It is now certified Gold and has amassed over 50 Million streams worldwide, cementing it’s place as one of the biggest dance hits in recent years.

Riton kicked off 2017 releasing ‘Money’ a genre-bending collaboration featuring Nigerian superstars in their own right Mr Eazi & Davido, as well as reconnecting with previous collaborator Kah-Lo. Co-written by MNEK, the track was named ‘Hottest Record In the World’ by Annie Mac and enjoyed strong success in a number of European countries including Belgium where it earned silver status and enjoyed a successful run across various radio stations across the region. Continuing his run of successful collaborations and a run of summer festival dates across the UK & internationally; including appearances at Creamfields, Tomorrowland and BBC Radio 1 in Ibiza, Riton released ‘Deeper’ with MNEK and the House Gospel Choir in the Autumn of 2017. Riton was introduced to the Choir by Annie Mac, who had invited them to appear with her on her set at V Festival. He was so impressed by their performance that he invited them to appear & contribute vocals to ‘Deeper’ alongside MNEK. To date, the track has earned the title of ‘Hottest Record in the World’ with Annie Mac and has been named a ‘Future Anthem’ by Danny Howard, who later offered to provide his own remix of the track.

In the final weeks of 2017, Riton reunited with Kah-Lo for the release of ‘Fake ID’, one of many tracks from a collaborative project released in 2018 via Riton Time.