On an overnight flight from New York City to Berlin, Harrison Lee knew he was doing something right, even as he spent the entire eight-hour flight meticulously piecing together his set.
The NYC-based producer — who makes electronic music as BrokinPaper — had been recruited by Gucci to play the afterparty of a May event by the luxe fashion brand. When he arrived in the German capital, there was even an all-Gucci outfit to wear during his set waiting for him in the hotel room.
His performance was a hit, with his brooding, sharp-edged productions being a perfect fit for the ever-cool and always sexy fashion house. The night went so well, in fact, that two weeks later he was DJing another Gucci event in Times Square, playing techno informed by his time in Berlin. Images of his face were even flashed on a few of the location’s iconic digital billboards during the event, which followed a fashion show the first cruise collection by Gucci creative director Demna. It was a high fashion, high glitz, high stakes room packed with celebrities, and BrokinPaper was the one making them dance.
“Being born and raised in New York City, it was just so crazy,” he says. “I’ve been here my entire life, and then this was happening.”
These moments are two of the latest peaks in a career BrokinPaper has been working at since he was a teenager in a metal band called Broken Paper Wings. When that group didn’t pan out, he knew he still wanted to make music, deciding a solo venture might be easier. This was circa 2010, when Skrillex was ascending to the apex of the electronic music ecosystem. Watching this rise, it dawned on Lee that producing electronic music might be his path not just into the dance world, but in becoming a producer that’s called upon by artists from other genres. “I started producing dubstep, house, and a bunch of different things just as an experiment,” he says.
This experiment persisted while he immersed himself further in the online and in IRL New York. He was especially drawn to the music of Boys Noize and Gesaffelstein, both pioneering producers whose work lands in the heavier, harder sector of the vast electronic music spectrum and who’ve collaborated with acts including Nine Inch Nails, Ye and Lady Gaga.
“Gesaffelstein’s ‘Rocket Number 9’ remix just started playing on YouTube,” BrokinPaper recalls of his first time hearing the French artist. “I was like, ‘This is incredible.’ It’s electronic music, but I feel like it spans across different genres, which I think is a big reason an artist like Kanye reached out to him to work together. That’s another reason why I gravitated towards his style of electronic music, because it’s electronic, but it has a draw where people who enjoy music outside of electronic can also enjoy it. I really wanted to make music similar in that way.”
He felt he’d gotten closer to this goal with the release of his 2019 EP The Maslow and its biggest track “Sapiosexuality” — which, he says, “is where I truly found my sound.” He and his manager ran Instagram ads with tracks from the EP, which helped “Sapiosexuality” gain traction. “That was the first time the Spotify numbers started growing by themselves,” he says. He had similar success with “66023C” from his 2020 EP NeoBrute, with this visibility ultimately leading to a call from a marketing agency who placed the song in a 2025 ad for a Zara haircare campaign.
“If there was an event to point to that would be the start into the brand element of it all, I think it was probably that,” BrokinPaper says. “It was a lot of visibility and also helped align BrokinPaper with high fashion, because shortly after that Gucci reached out with their opportunities.”
Why BrokinPaper Is an Up-and-Coming Dance Artist
BrokinPaper’s third studio album, Function Over Form, is out today (Sept. 9), with the project’s nine tracks demonstrating his skill with music that’s simultaneously heavy, cerebral and chic. The album features “Damage,” the first BrokinPaper track to ever hit editorial playlists on Spotify and YouTube Music, with this visibility not only being, he says, “a stamp of approval,” but also increasing streaming for the entire BrokinPaper catalog.
Function Over Form also features a remix of “Antidote” made with Belarus-based producer Jenasi. Working with an artist from Eastern Europe, where electronic music tends to lean harder and darker, has also confirmed “that that’s the direction I’m moving towards,” says BrokinPaper.
Function Over Form also finds BrokinPaper putting forth music that, hence the title, seamlessly folds into his sets, an issue he’s previously struggled with. “It used to be that I would plan DJ sets and it would honestly be stressful for me,” he says. “With a lot of shows in the past, we spent so much energy and time on marketing and me stressing out over the set, that the night would come and I just wouldn’t enjoy it. It would be over, and I would be like, ‘Wow, we worked on that for the past several months, and it was over in two hours.’”
“At the end of it,” he continues, “I would think like, ‘I don’t even remember enjoying any of that.’ And the audience can see that, you know? I realized that if I’m not enjoying it, then why would I expect them to enjoy it?”
Deciding he would produce more intentionally to make DJing easier and more fun created the conceptual foundation for Function Over Form. With this arsenal of ready-made performance music, live shows are becoming vastly more enjoyable for him to play, an evolution he discovered when a friend invited him to come play in a New York coffee shop.
“It was so low stress, because I was just DJing for him and his friends and maybe 20 of my friends,” he says. “That was the first set where I didn’t plan anything and just played music for people to enjoy. It was so much fun to not have any expectations and just read the crowd and play what I wanted and not stress over missing a transition or something.”
This new approach will no doubt aid BrokinPaper when he heads out on his next round of shows, which are set to be announced in the coming months.
Best Songs to Start With
From BrokinPaper’s 2019 EP The Maslow, this track marks the moment he locked into the sound he was working to achieve and which has since become his signature.
The 2020 BrokinPaper track that was used in a campaign for Zara Hair Chromatic Mode that starred model (and Charli xcx pal) Gabriette.
The first BrokinPaper track to make it onto DPS editorial playlists, and thus one of his highest streaming songs to date.
What’s Next for BrokinPaper
As he plans his next shows, BrokinPaper is also conceptualizing a follow-up album called Form Over Function, which he imagines will include “more summery tunes and daytime party type stuff.” In the meantime, however, he’s happy to release Function Over Form, which marks the most fully realized iteration of his sound and which is earning him entry into some of the world’s most fashionable rooms.
“I’m just honored because the music is reaching high places, which is amazing, and it’s got enough influence where people are like ‘We don’t know this guy, but we want him to be a part of something we create.’ Knowing that my music is influencing other creators is really rewarding for me.”
But knowing he’s now as comfortable rocking a coffee shop as he is a haute couture afterparty, BrokinPaper seems poised to keep finding his way into the most unexpected rooms.
Past Billboard Up-and-Coming Dance Artists of the Month
