Photo: J. Kempin / Contributor
For better or worse, Steve Aoki is on the Mount Rushmore of EDM. Both reviled and revered, the superstar DJ who’s known equally for his wait for it… wait for it… bass drops as he is for riding on top of the heads of his audience on an inflatable raft (he was sued by a female fan for injuries), there is no disputing that Aoki is the hardest working showman in the music business with a see-it-to-believe-it jet-set schedule and a backstory as colorful as the giant cakes he throws at his shows.
The dude just screams biopic, although it’s probably him screaming it. “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” is a documentary on Aoki that was as inevitable as Michael Phelps trying to DJ (see for yourself).
Now, streaming on Netflix, the doc was shot over the course of three years by the same team behind the critically-acclaimed Jiro Dreams of Sushi so it has got movie cred. The story follows Aoki’s journey to play the biggest show of his career and centers around the complex relationship with his late father, Rocky Aoki, the Benihana restaurant tycoon, daredevil athlete and former Olympian.
The inside look into Aoki’s life, music and quest for immortality (really), features interviews with his sister/supermodel Devon Aoki, along with musicians and contemporaries Diplo, Tiesto, Afrojack, Laidback Luke, Travis Barker and Pete Tong. Also, to mark the release of the doc, Aoki got the celebrity couch interview treatment with Katie Couric on Facebook Live Q&A which you can see here — steveaoki.is/Facebook
