Fun Friday: Meet Tobi Bielohlawek

This week, we introduce to you, Tobi Bielohlawek! He recently joined the SoundCloud app team. Find out more about this music/dance lover below!

So… how did you end up working for SoundCloud?

I came across SoundCloud the first time about a year ago, while searching for good music of course. You must know, I’m quite into swinging tunes, especially if they are spiced with some electronic beatz, and SoundCloud is just full of such kinds. Soon, it became my number one source for finding music and I started to recommend my discoveries on my (Electronic) Swing Blog.

By the time I left my last Job in Hamburg with Qype, it happened to be that SoundCloud was hiring. As I fancied moving to Berlin anyway, I couldn’t wait to apply and wooosh, now I’m happy to be part of the app developement team!

What kind of music are you lovin’ these days?

That’s a hard question to answer. As I said, I like it when it swings. Listening to the good ol’ ones, like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fritzgerald or Louis Prima, makes me smile – such music is so full of life and joy.

Recently, I enjoy music remixed as ‘Electro Swing’ or ‘Swing Beat’, which is perfect to dance crazy to. If it has some big and breaking Balkan influences, I just can’t stop dancing!

Do you have any favorite tracks on SoundCloud right now?

Oi, these questions don’t get any easier ;-) Well, Frohlocker, a duo from the South-West of Germany, are my all time favorite.

Hipbrass is just kick ass or Balkadan from Jerusalem, he shortly released “The Swing Redux”, which I like a lot:

Are you a musician? Do you play any instruments?

Honest answer, no. Well, my parents tried hard to push me into learning an instrument (fingers crossed they don’t read this), but unfortunately, practicing wasn’t my top priority. So, I guess it didn’t work out well and it would even be saying too much that I have more than basic piano and guitar skills :-)

But now, I figure, it wouldn’t be fun for musicians if nobody danced to their stuff, right? And that’s exactly the part I’m taking instead – dancing Charleston, Lindy Hop or crazy freestyle moves.

What do you like the most about working for SoundCloud so far?

I quite like the atmosphere, having great young people from all over the world around and seeing more and more musicians using the website to publish their music; it’s great. In addition, working on a product, which I use myself, all the time is great fun. This combined with positive feedback from our users is just perfect. So keep it coming ;-)

Thanks Tobi! Feel free to follow Tobi on Twitter @rngtng and check out his, as he would say “geeky”, blog!