Sam Alfred: Beatport Next Artist Stories 2026

Sam Alfred did not grow up with a dance scene on his doorstep. Tasmania had local bands and clubs playing the hits, but little in the way of underground music. Melbourne changed that. After moving to Naarm, he watched DJs his own age tearing into records he had never heard. “If they can do this, I can do this too,” he remembers thinking.

Alfred came to dance music sideways. He played violin, sang in choir and threw himself into school productions before artists like Golden Features showed him how those musical instincts could work in a club. He produced before he DJed, renting DDJ-400s simply to mix his own tracks together. Other people’s records came next.

So did the releases. A remix of Anna Lunoe’s “Like Me” for NLV Records in 2022 opened the door, followed by music on Gallery Recordings, Disorder and Earth’s Only Paradise. His Roadblocks EP landed on Running Back’s Misfit Melodies, while 2025 brought the Energy two-tracker on Ben Hemsley's bébé recordings, with a rave nostalgia and crisp bounce that quickly caught on across Clubland. 

The move to London cracked things open further. As a person of color who had often felt out of place in Australia, the city’s mix of people, cultures and music hit differently. His first UK show at Manchester’s Hidden went off from the first tune. From there, Alfred got more ruthless about what made it into his sets. He wants people walking out asking, “What was that tune?”

Now part of the Beatport Next Class of 2026, Alfred has signed to Ninja Tune and made his Technicolour debut with "No More," a charging tribute to ’90s hard house. It fits the sound he calls “progressive but fun,” and we're fully here for it.

He played Coachella this year. Next comes what he believes is his strongest body of work yet. Beyond that, he wants a proper club residency – somewhere he can return, dig deeper and show more than one side of himself. The rooms are getting bigger, but the mission stays the same: play people something they didn’t know they needed to hear.

Watch Sam Alfred tell his story in our latest Beatport Next Artist Stories mini-doc.