To say that Valentin Brunel, aka KUNGS, was born under a lucky star is something of an understatement.

The very first single released by the young DJ / producer from Toulon fired up the world’s dancefloors. This Girl went to number 1 in 30 countries, entered the top 10 in the USA and was certified diamond 13 times. Now, like his unstoppable hit, Kungs – who is based in Aix en Provence in the South of France today – has both literally and figuratively travelled all around the world. But none of it came about by chance, it was the culmination of many things…

The highly spirited Valentin made his first foray into the world of music when he was just a child, playing a djembe drum given to him by his parents. Exploring his parents’ record collection, Valentin discovered soul and funk. At that early age, Kungs also got to know iconic singers of the genre: Nina Simone, Ray Charles and more recently Benjamin Clementine, to name but a few.

Naturally, Valentin also listened to blues and rock: The Rolling Stones, Phoenix and all the rest. As his high-school finals approached, The Kooks were one of his favorite bands. Kungs spent hours on his keyboard, learning to use Ableton live software expertly during his last year at high school whilst exploring another genre, the natural successor to his childhood music: house. Reconciling soul vocals, pop melodies and disco or funk beats, the genre was a perfect fit for the budding producer. The next step was obviously to master the art of mixing, since he had decided that one day, he too would stand behind the decks and cast his spell on the dance floor.

Kungs uploaded his first tracks to Soundcloud; focusing on remixes, his versions of the likes of Bob Marley and Lana Del Rey steadily attracted a following. He wrote his first instrumentals, got in touch with singers on SoundCloud and found vocals to add to his tracks. Slowly but surely, his career gained momentum. He freely admits that at the time, he had no idea just how far his music would take him; he mainly intended to simply share his tunes with his friends.

Even as he was perfecting his techniques, he was approached by bookers and began to DJ at clubs, whilst the first official remix requests started arriving. And not from just any artists – Axwell & Ingrosso and Lost Frequencies asked Kungs to bring his fresh approach to their tracks. The results were impressive. The Lost Frequencies remix clocked up 30 million streams on SoundCloud and near double that on YouTube.

Valentin did not stop there, though. Kungs scoured the web for a track that would inspire him, searching for vocals and a riff he could build a single around. Finally, he came across This Girl, a critical success released a few years before by the Australian band Cookin’ On 3 Burners. It was love at first play. Inspired, Kungs dissected the song, made it his and rebuilt and accelerated it. With a house kick and hi-hat, the track took on a whole new feel. Brass aficionado Kungs naturally chose trumpets for the transition and came up with a melodic sequence that would be acclaimed as the star ingredient of the remix; the powerful, harmonious, irresistible, catchy hook that made the track so original. When Kungs’s summery version of This Girl was released in midwinter, it scored a dazzling success, reaching number 1 in France in just a month. The single was distributed worldwide and achieved some unbelievable stats: 400 million streams, 125 million views, 10 million Shazams, 1.7 million downloads and an adjusted figure of 4 million singles! Rarely has a debut effort met with such global success. Even so, Kungs still had his feet firmly on the ground. And although he spent long hours perfecting This Girl, it was not his only work in progress.

Having met Jamie N Commons in London, he especially co-wrote Don’t You Know with him. It would become his second single and another hit, with 15 million streams to date, a string of number ones in France (Shazam, iTunes, radio airplay, club hit, etc.) and gold-record status. This conclusive, intelligent follow-up was more suggestive of blues than its predecessor, but featured a brass arrangement that sharpened the outlines of Kungs’s sound and signature.

More recently, Valentin has been working hard in the studio in London with many more collaborators. One of his first guests was Luke Pritchard from his favorite band in past years: The Kooks. Together they wrote Melody, based just on a guitar-chord tab, bassline and beat. The only remaining tasks were to tweak it a little and decide just where to place it in an ongoing project: Kungs’s first album, Layers.

Whilst he was at it, Kungs revamped a song by Grace Kelly, a singer he’d discovered on SoundCloud. Having heard a song by Ephemerals, he got in touch with that group, too. He had especially been struck by Wolfgang Valbrun’s vocals, which consequently featured on two of the album’s tracks (the embryonic hit I Feel So Bad and the uplifting Freedom). He also worked (on Trust) with subtle singer Rae Morris, Freia (on Bangalore Streets) and Lune (on Tripping Off). On the male side, Layers features the singer Judge, appearing together with Robin Schulz (the melancholic Crazy), and Ritual (the ecstatic You Remain).

As its name suggests, Layers piles up influences, voices, instruments, genres and collaborations to form a coherent body of work. Its connecting thread is that great emotion that Kungs so loves to capture and share: joy.