Two first-generation house producers make up the DJ and production powerhouse that is Chocolate Puma. Gaston Steenkist (Dobre) and René ter Host (DJ Zki) hail from Haarlem, Netherlands and have been driving house music in Europe and all over the world since the early ‘90s.
Their biggest hit, released as The Goodmen, which hit number one on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in ’93, was “Give It Up”. This house track used samba percussion and a simple, repeated vocal line. Later the same year, it hit number five on the UK Singles Chart.
Dobre and DJ Zki use the studio as their laboratory and the dance club as their testing ground. They’ve hit the spot with some serious hits, played loud, like I Wanna Be U, A Star is Born, and Always And Forever, all released in the early to mid 2000s.
These guys are always reinventing themselves. They’ve produced music and played out as The Goodmen, Jark Prongo, Zki and Dobre, and René et Gaston. Changing their names and personas is just one aspect of how they’re always keeping it fresh and moving forward.
The boys of Chocolate Puma still love “Give It Up”, but they don’t rely on past success to keep their careers going. They take their inspiration from house, techno, acid house, and everything electronic. Over the past few years, they’ve been working closely with Defected Records, putting out albums like “Morning Rain”, “Back Home”, and countless remixes of other artists.
The two stay humble, as they continue to create driving, full, loud beats. They keep their studio simple, maintaining that, to make music, all you need is, in Gaston’s words, “a computer with two speakers and a keyboard, logic and some plugins.”
