Rui da Silva (born 25 April 1968) is a Portuguese producer and DJ, whose single “Touch Me” reached number one in the UK in 2001.
Rui da Silva started producing house music in 1992, when the disco culture began to establish itself in Lisbon. Realizing the lack of dance music labels in Portugal, Rui da Silva starts a collaboration with DJ Vibe, forming Kaos Records, the first label in Portugal specializing in house and electronic music.
His first big hit (and Kaos’ first release) was “Não”, a track that used vocals from a track by Xutos & Pontapés, and which Rui da Silva released under the pseudonym Doctor J. Still with DJ Vibe, he formed in 1993 the Underground Sound of Lisbon project. A year later, the song “So Get Up” (which features an original spoken-word poem by Californian songwriter Ithaka Darin Pappas) achieved worldwide fame after being edited under the auspices of Tribal America, with support from Danny Tenaglia. The same Tenaglia also remixed the track.
During his years at Kaos, Silva worked with other artists, such as Luís Leite (LL Project, creating the song “Khine # 3”) and Alex Santos, with whom he released the theme “The Sax Theme”.
In 1999, he left Lisbon for London, where he exchanged music production for DJ work, also starting to work under his own name. Rui da Silva leaves Kaos in 2001 after his last collaborative effort as Underground Sound of Lisbon. In the UK, he founded Kismet Records, where he began producing a more progressive sound. He has released several songs under his own name, as well as collaborative efforts with Chris Coco and Moshic.
As a remixer, Rui da Silva created his own versions of “Play” (Jennifer Lopez), “Happy” (Lighthouse Family) and “Walking on Thin Ice” (Yoko Ono).
