Solomun: Real Name, Age, Diynamic and the Manchester Return

Solomun's real name is Mladen Solomun. He was born on 27 December 1975 in Travnik, in what was then Yugoslavia and is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, grew up in Hamburg, and turned 50 last December. He co-founded Diynamic Music in late 2005, has run the Solomun +1 residency at Pacha Ibiza on Sundays since the mid-2010s, played the most-watched Boiler Room set ever recorded, was the first DJ in GTA Online's nightclub, and on 25 September 2026 plays The Warehouse Project in Manchester, his first show in the city for five years and, the venue says, his only UK headline date for the rest of the year. It sold out. This is the whole profile, from the Hamburg record shop years to why a 50-year-old Bosnian-German DJ is still the hardest ticket of the autumn.

Solomun at a glance

• Real name: Mladen Solomun. The stage name is simply his surname.
• Born: 27 December 1975, Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Raised in Hamburg, Germany, where his family moved when he was a child.
• Age: 50 in 2026.
• Label: Diynamic Music, founded in Hamburg in late 2005 with Adriano Trolio. The name is the motto: Do It Yourself.
• Residency: Solomun +1, Sundays at Pacha Ibiza, one guest per week. The 2026 season is the twelfth, running from 31 May to 4 October.
• Records: Dance Baby (2009), Customer Is King EP (2018), Home (2020), Nobody Is Not Loved (2021), and Rumpta with Skrillex (2026).
• Awards: Mixmag DJ of the Year 2012; DJ Awards Best Deep House 2013 and 2015.
• The set: Boiler Room Tulum, 14 January 2015, at Papaya Playa Project, the most-viewed Boiler Room set in the platform's history at more than 72 million YouTube views.
• Next UK date: The Warehouse Project, Depot Mayfield, Manchester, Friday 25 September 2026, 21:00 to 04:00. Sold out.

What is Solomun's real name and where is he from?

Mladen Solomun was born in Travnik, a town in central Bosnia, at the end of 1975, and moved with his family to Hamburg as a child. That is the whole biography most profiles skip past, and it is the part that explains him. He is a German DJ with a Bosnian name playing a Balkan-inflected version of house music, and the sense of a music that carries somewhere else inside it is the thing his fans hear even when they cannot name it. His street show in Sarajevo in August 2019, free, outdoors, the city centre closed for it, is the hero image on this page because it is the clearest picture of what he means to the place he came from.

Hamburg is the other half. It is where Diynamic was founded, where the early records were made, and where the label's do-it-yourself ethic comes from: a small city scene that had to build its own infrastructure rather than borrow Berlin's. When people describe Solomun as a Berlin DJ they are wrong twice, by country of birth and by city.

Diynamic Music: the label that made the name

Diynamic was founded in Hamburg in late 2005 by Solomun and his partner Adriano Trolio. The motto, Do It Yourself, was practical rather than romantic: they pressed their own records, booked their own nights and built a roster around a sound that sat between deep house and the melodic end of techno before that was a genre with a name. Solomun's own album, Dance Baby, arrived on the label in 2009 and did the early work of defining what a Diynamic record sounded like: patient, melodic, built on a groove rather than a drop.

By 2012 the label and the DJ had outgrown the city. Mixmag named him DJ of the Year that year, and the DJ Awards in Ibiza followed with Best Deep House in 2013 and again in 2015. The interesting thing about that run is that it happened on the label's terms. Diynamic never chased the EDM boom that was making other European DJs rich in the same years; it kept putting out records that worked in a club at 3am and let the rest catch up.

Solomun +1 at Pacha: the residency that defines Ibiza Sundays

Solomun +1 is the simplest format in Ibiza and one of the most copied: Solomun, one guest, one night, every Sunday of the season at Pacha. It has run since the mid-2010s, when he also held a second +1 residency at Destino, and in 2026 it is in its twelfth season, from 31 May to 4 October. The guest list this year reads like this site's artist index: Skrillex, Jamie xx, Peggy Gou, Anyma, Idris Elba, Denis Sulta, Chloé Caillet, DJ Gigola, Dixon, Âme, KETTAMA, DESIREE, Max Styler and Barry Can't Swim.

The format works because it is a conversation rather than a bill. One guest means a long set each, a back-to-back if the night calls for it, and a room that knows exactly what it is getting. It is also why the +1 is the Ibiza night working DJs most want to be booked for: you are not fourth on a poster, you are the other half of the evening. The last +1 of 2026 falls on Sunday 4 October, which is the same weekend as the Ibiza closing parties, and it closes Pacha's Sunday season.

Boiler Room Tulum, 2015: the most-watched set ever

On 14 January 2015, during a Diynamic takeover at the BPM Festival, Solomun played a Boiler Room set at Papaya Playa Project on the beach in Tulum. It has become the most-viewed performance in the platform's history, past 72 million views on YouTube, and it is still the set people send each other when they want to explain what a DJ set can be. The reasons are not complicated: daylight, a beach, a crowd close enough to touch, and a selector who built two hours slowly enough that the peak felt earned rather than scheduled. It made Boiler Room's whole up-close format into a global product and it made Solomun, already big in Europe, a name in every market Boiler Room reached.

As a DJ the thing to take from it is the patience. Nothing in that set is loud for the sake of it. The mixes are long, the records are given room, and the crowd's energy comes from being trusted with a build rather than hit with one. Eleven years on it is still the reference for playing to a camera without playing for it.

GTA Online: the first DJ in the nightclub

In July 2018 Rockstar released the After Hours update for GTA Online, which let players own and run a nightclub, and Solomun was the first resident DJ, in the booth from 24 July 2018 and bookable ever after. The set-up mission has the player collect him from Los Santos International, where he takes the controls of a private jet after the pilot passes out and crash-lands it at Sandy Shores. It was a real set, played by him, and it put his music in front of a generation of players who had never been near Pacha. The line from that booking to Rockstar's CircoLoco Records and the club music in the GTA VI radio is direct: the After Hours DJs were the proof that dance music could carry a game's nightlife.

Nobody Is Not Loved, Home and Rumpta

Solomun's recorded output is smaller than his touring reputation suggests, which is a choice. After Dance Baby in 2009 there was a long gap before Customer Is King in 2018 and Home in 2020, then Nobody Is Not Loved in 2021, the album that treated the Diynamic sound as a songwriter's medium, with vocalists and structure rather than club tools. A remix for Pet Shop Boys followed in 2024, which tells you what kind of pop he is drawn to.

Then came Rumpta. The Skrillex collaboration was first heard as a demo at Tomorrowland in 2025, resurfaced in Solomun's Tehmplo Tulum set in January 2026, ran through his spring festival sets including EDC Las Vegas, and was finally released on Diynamic on 1 July 2026, four days before Skrillex joined him as the +1 at Pacha on 5 July. It is a groove-led house record with a vocal that nods to golden-era house and a low end that shows who the collaborator was. It is also the reason a 50-year-old with a Hamburg label is on festival main stages next to producers half his age.

The Warehouse Project, 25 September 2026

The reason for the timing of this profile is the date. Solomun plays The Warehouse Project at Depot Mayfield on Friday 25 September 2026, 21:00 to 04:00, in the second weekend of the 20th-anniversary season. WHP bills it as his first Manchester show in five years and his only headline UK show for the rest of 2026, and it sold out well ahead of the night. If you have a ticket, the Depot is the right room for him: long, arched, built for a set that goes somewhere over seven hours rather than a festival slot that has to land in ninety minutes. If you do not, the waiting list is the only route, and the rest of the WHP autumn is in the October club calendar. Three weeks later the season's other sold-out big name, Eric Prydz, takes the Concourse.

Why Solomun still matters in 2026

He is the clearest example in dance music of a career built on a residency and a label rather than a hit. Twenty years of Diynamic, twelve seasons of +1, one Boiler Room that will outlive all of it, and a set of records that never chased the room. For anyone trying to understand why melodic house went from a Hamburg niche to the sound of every Ibiza Sunday, he is the through-line, and the crowd of thousands in a closed-off Sarajevo street in 2019 is the proof that a DJ can mean something to a place. I have watched him close Pacha from the floor and the lesson is the same one the Tulum set teaches: the records are given time, and the crowd gives it back.

FAQ

What is Solomun's real name?

Mladen Solomun. He performs under his surname.

How old is Solomun?

He was born on 27 December 1975, so he is 50 in 2026.

Where is Solomun from?

He was born in Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then part of Yugoslavia, and grew up in Hamburg, Germany. He is usually described as Bosnian-German.

What is Diynamic Music?

The Hamburg label Solomun founded in late 2005 with Adriano Trolio. Its name is its motto, Do It Yourself, and it has released his own records including Dance Baby, Home, Nobody Is Not Loved and Rumpta.

What is Solomun +1?

His Sunday residency at Pacha Ibiza, built on one guest per week. The 2026 season is the twelfth and runs from 31 May to 4 October, with guests including Skrillex, Jamie xx, Peggy Gou, Anyma, Idris Elba, Denis Sulta, KETTAMA and Barry Can't Swim.

What is the Solomun Boiler Room set?

A daytime set recorded on 14 January 2015 at Papaya Playa Project in Tulum, Mexico, during a Diynamic takeover at the BPM Festival. It is the most-viewed Boiler Room set in the platform's history, with more than 72 million views on YouTube.

Is Solomun in GTA?

Yes. He was the first resident DJ in the GTA Online nightclub introduced with the After Hours update in July 2018, playing a real set in the game from 24 July 2018, and he appears as a character in the club's set-up mission.

What is Rumpta?

A single by Solomun and Skrillex, released on Diynamic on 1 July 2026 after more than a year as a festival demo. It arrived days before Skrillex played Solomun +1 at Pacha on 5 July 2026.

When is Solomun playing in the UK in 2026?

Friday 25 September 2026 at The Warehouse Project, Depot Mayfield, Manchester, 21:00 to 04:00. WHP describes it as his first Manchester show in five years and his only UK headline show for the rest of 2026. It is sold out.

Sources

• Wikipedia entry for Mladen Solomun; Diynamic Music and Bandcamp for release dates
• The Warehouse Project official calendar for the 25 September 2026 listing
• Electronic Groove, Ibiza Spotlight and Resident Advisor on the Solomun +1 2026 season at Pacha
• Boiler Room, setlist.fm and 1001Tracklists on the January 2015 Tulum set; Rockstar Games and the GTA Wiki on the After Hours update
• The FADER, Beatportal and EDM.com on the release of Rumpta, July 2026

This profile is part of House of MNEEMO's ongoing coverage of the electronic and club music scene, written by London-based DJ and producer MNEEMO, with millions of streams to his name and a party series running through some of London's best clubs. For the season he is playing into, read the Warehouse Project 2026 guide.