D Stone: Beatport Next Artist Stories 2026

D Stone’s music does not sound or feel like something that's been clicked together from a clean little pack of house loops. It has hands on it. The Amsterdam-born, London-based DJ and producer – real name Daan Steenman – pulls from proto-disco, funk, garage, deeper percussion, and live instrumentation, but none of it feels neatly filed away. There are chords being played, drums being pushed around, basslines with a bit of body heat on them. It is house music with fingerprints and soul, not factory shine.

He came up around instruments. His dad was a musician. His brother was a drummer and DJ, with kick drums leaking through the wall when D Stone was still a kid trying to figure out what that sound was. Piano and guitar came first. Then came electronic music. One of the real switches flipped in Ibiza, when he was 16, lost in a room full of older dancers and completely swallowed by the moment. Hook, line and sinker, Steenman knew that clubland is where he belonged. 

Since then, his catalog has started to land with real weight. Releases on Nick Curly’s Cécille, Cinthie’s Crystal Grooves, Demi Riquisimo’s Semi Delicious, Dam Swindle’s Heist Recordings, Chloé Caillet’s SMIILE, and his own Stone Series have pushed his name deeper into circulation, earning support from some of house music’s heaviest hitters. His 2023 track “Total Unison” really helped crack things open for him. It became the record people shout for overseas, the one that now follows him from gig to gig, and, somehow, the track a fan used during a boat proposal. Ridiculous, sweet, very house music coded. 

His sets do not run in one straight line. They roll deep, warm up, crack open, get nostalgic, then move somewhere else before things get too polished. In the studio, it is Ableton, MIDI controllers, drum machines, guitars, live playing, whatever gets the idea out.

In our Beatport Next Artist Stories mini-doc, D Stone talks about family jams, Ibiza, his London setup, and why copying the obvious thing is usually a dead end.