Michaël Brun’s life has been punctuated by a series of resets. When he left Haiti as a teen in the wake of a coup to go to school in the U.S.; when he left school to tour the world as an EDM DJ, performing for tens of thousands at festivals and collaborating with the likes of Tiësto and Calvin Harris; when he left that life behind to go back home to Haiti, collaborating with local musicians and mentoring kids; and now, as he prepares to bring the music and culture of Haiti and the diaspora to the world through his music after signing his first major label deal with Astralwerks. 

If it sounds like a lot, it is—but Brun is unfazed. With each reset, things have gotten easier. “That's one thing I've realized,” he says, “it always became a little less scary because I knew  that the craziest reset of my life happened already: Going to military school during a Coup D’etat.”

Brun has produced multi-platinum records and number one hits, won Grammys, and played Coachella at 20 years old. So what do you do once you’ve done all you can imagine, and worked with every person you ever dreamed of working with? You make new dreams. “I want to impact the world,” he says

Brun’s new music is a fusion of the cultures he’s encountered in his travels, from the polyrhythmic sounds of his home in the Caribbean to the twinkling melodies of European club music and the syrupy pop of the African continent. It’s also quite literally a part of himself, the child of a Haitian father and Guyanese mother, with roots in China, India, Africa, Portugal, and France. But his heart is in Port-au-Prince, and how he would be able to give back to the people of a place that’s given so much to the world and gotten so little in return. “I always had it in the back of my mind,” he says, “how am I gonna give back to my country? How am I actually gonna incorporate my culture into this?”

His path to helping his homeland was a circuitous one. When he left to attend school in the U.S., he had every intention of becoming a pediatrician, healing the most vulnerable members of his community. But when his underground-internet-seeking and house party-DJing evolved into viral remixes on the HypeMachine and opening slots for AVICII, he left school—with the dean and his parents’ blessing—and began his music career in earnest. 

But as the trends in EDM began to shift from the melodic, progressive house stylings of Swedish House Mafia into the wubby brostep of Skrillex, he felt a disconnect. “There were all these things happening globally that I was listening to but wasn't making because I thought, “No, it's not gonna fit into this part of my life, this career. But I'm not trying to just follow a trend…I wanna make music that I'm really passionate about. So I guess it's time to reset again.”

Brun quit the EDM touring circuit cold turkey and returned to Haiti. He sought out local artists to collaborate with, and started working with kids through the Artists Institute Haiti, a school that provides youth with access to musical instruments and production. Together, they produced the song “Wherever I Go”—a bubbly dance floor anthem that sings of carrying the spirit of Haiti around the world—and an accompanying music festival that funded scholarships for the school. “All that came from the community,” he says. And the impact went beyond mere charity; the kids learned how they themselves could enact change, and could see how their work supported the kids that came after them. 

Haiti’s struggles are well-documented, though often with the slant of a colonial POV, or without the voices of the country’s people. But while it is best known for the vast wealth it generated for France as a colony—and the monumental impact of its revolt and revolution—it has a 500-year-old legacy of sitting at the center of the cultural diaspora that emerged from the transatlantic slave trade, a cultural hub in the Caribbean where the sounds of Africa and Europe coalesced into something new—something global.

“That cultural exchange is symbolic of the music that I'm making now,” Brun says. “As I'm learning about my own history,  I'm realizing that we're all deeply ingrained in each other's lives, whether we realize it or not. I think that's why I've been able to connect with all of these artists from around the world, whether it's Latin artists or African artists, within the U.S., or Europe, or Asia.”

Connecting cultures across seas, Brun channels Kes’ Trini bright soca stylings through Ghanian pop singer King Promise, peppered with some Nuyorican soul from Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos. The bouncy new pop dancehall number “Charge It” offers a glimpse of how many perspectives comprise even one genre; Brun laid down tracks in Kingston, New York, and LA with Jamaican (Bayka), American (Jozzy), and Jamaican-American (Masego) artists. And while JoeBoy has been anointed the next pop prince in Nigeria by his mentor Mr. Eazi, Brun was one of the first producers in the States to work with him, collaborating on the moody R&B-tinged ballad “Game Over.”

The guests on these new songs are more than just hot names, they’re artists that have become part of his extended musical family. His latest single is a “Clueless,” a collaboration with the rising Nigerian singer Oxlade, recording during his first-ever recording session in the U.S. Built around a simple guitar riff and the dulcet tones of his layered harmonies, together they channel a classical, operatic vibe into a catchy pop song. “He has one of the most unique voices I've ever heard,” Brun says. “And he is as good of a singer live as he is on records. When you get to see somebody fully orchestrate a 10-stack harmony in their head before we even record it? And he hears it perfectly? That's an actual musical genius in action.”

Another member of his extended musical family is Colombian megastar J Balvin, a frequent collaborator who’s become a close friend and mentor. On “Touchdown,” Brun teams him up with Jamaican dancehall legends Bounty Killer and Beenie Man, with an assist on the hook from Tasan, the daughter of dancehall DJ turned gospel singer Papa San. The result is a Colombian reggaetón infused with the spirit of Jamaican dancehall—the sound that helped shape the genre as it evolved in Puerto Rico from the Panamanian reggae en Español to the dancehall/hip-hop fusion that landed on the shores of Columbia in the late aughts. In closing the loop, Brun reveals the cultural conversation that’s been swirling around the Caribbean, and manifests it in song form. 

That conversation is also at the heart of Brun’s Bayo tour, a touring version of the block parties he would throw in Haiti that would bring together veteran and emerging local artists (Boukman Eksperyans, Tabou Combo) with some of the world’s biggest stars (Major Lazer, Mr. Eazi, Wyclef). “I think it legitimizes Haitian artists, from an international viewpoint,” Brun explains. “Because when you see somebody like Baky—our biggest rapper—on the same stage as J Balvin, to somebody in the crowd, they're at the same level, they get the same response. That's my way of continuing to elevate the culture.”

Brun’s relationship with Balvin, the eternal dreamer, has helped keep him in what he calls “a roofless room,” to imagine the possibilities that still remain for a life and career that has already been quite charmed. “I want to be somebody that builds community on a global scale, because I've seen how it's affected my life,” he says. “I've lived all my dreams. I have to make new ones.”