Promo
Promo, the Dutch hardcore DJ born Sebastian Hoff, began working the decks around 1992 at smaller gabber parties and, lacking a fixed venue, started organizing his own hardcore nights in community centers and sports halls. He began producing around 1995, scoring an early hit with a gabber version of No Doubt's “Don't Speak,” and continued through the genre's late-1990s decline with the influential Promo File series, released via ID&T, which helped shift hardcore toward lower tempos and harder kicks. In 2000 he co-founded the label and collective The Third Movement with X-ess, gaining full creative control after X-ess and Catscan departed in 2004, the same year he introduced the industrial and techno-leaning alias Rude Awakening. He was invited to headline at Qlimax in 2003 but withdrew after Q-dance restricted his set to 30 minutes, and he later closed Sensation Black in 2004. His catalogue spans albums from “Last Men Standing” in 2001 through “Solitude” in 2025, alongside a booking agency he established for major hardcore artists, reflecting a career built on gabber's earliest DIY party circuit through to established hardcore label ownership.