German producer / DJ David Hanke is the talented artist behind Renegades of Jazz, Dem Juju Poets, Lehto, and many other incarnations.

After being infected by the Northwest rock explosion in Seattle during the early 1990s, David Hanke became inspired to teach himself guitar. Unable to form a band throughout the 90s, he found himself coming into contact for the first time with electronic music at the beginning of the 2000s. He gained a particular interest with sample-based music shown to him by a friend who was listening to acts like Kid Loco, Nobukazu Takemura, Visit Venus, Up, Bustle & Out, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Nightmares On Wax and Thievery Corporation at that time.

After instantly falling in love with the debut albums of Bonobo and Quantic and realising this type of music was being made on a computer, mostly out of samples, without other musicians involved, he soon started taking his first steps to produce his own sample-based electronic music around 2003.

In 2006 he met Kolja Starkowski at the online database Discogs and after they noticed their similarities in music, they soon started making music together as Mash & Munkee, meeting regularly for sessions at one of their homes. As Mash & Munkee they produced breakbeat funk music and their first 12″ was getting support by Bonobo in his DJ sets at that time. Following this they released their album We Like It Like That in 2012.

After starting his side project Madball Scientists in 2007, Hanke also started his main solo project Renegades Of Jazz in 2010. After sending some first demos to Wass Records label owner Smoove, he was instantly signed to the label and in 2011 released his debut album as Renegades Of Jazz.

From 2013 to 2017 Hanke was one of the resident DJs at the renowned Mojo Club in Hamburg where he regularly played as Renegades Of Jazz. In 2014 Renegades Of Jazz signed to German label Agogo Records, where Hanke released three albums, Paradise Lost in 2015, Moyo Wangu in 2016 and Nevertheless in 2019.

Beside his main project as Renegades Of Jazz, there were also several side projects under the aliases Mankoora, Dem Juju Poets and Black Soyls. In 2018 Hanke released his first album under the name Keno, called Around The Corner, which saw him going back to his downbeat roots from the early 2000s. He released two more albums as Keno on his own Bathurst label. Transatlantyk in 2020 with Los Angeles based musician Tristan de Liège and Out Past The Current, a collection of remixes and one offs,  in 2021 before the Keno project was renamed Lehto a few months later.

Also in 2018 Hanke released the first single of a new project called The Motion Orchestra, with longtime friend and bass player Alexander Bednasch, alongside Andy Sells from Seattle on drums and fellow German musician Mark Matthes on violin and viola. They released their debut album All One at the end of 2021.

2022 will see Hanke release his fifth Renegades Of Jazz album, Sonic Verve and his first Letho album Between All Days by the end of the year. Both albums will be released on his own Bathurst label.

For more:
David Hanke’s website
Dem Juju Poets on facebook
David Hanke on twitter