Mental Theo

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Mental Theo is the stage name of Theo Nabuurs, a Dutch DJ and producer, born in 1965 in 's-Hertogenbosch. In the late 1980s he played in clubs in Mallorca and worked as an A&R manager at the record label Arcade. He then became known as a television presenter at TMF, RTL, SBS6 and Veronica. When Ruud de Wild left TMF as a VJ in 1998, he took over his programmes. Later he also started his own television production company, which made work for MTV and TMF. On the radio, from 2005 he presented programmes such as The Creepshow on the dance station Slam!FM.

Music and breakthrough

As a musician he made harder dance music and performed as a duo with Charly Lownoise. His first solo album, Back Once Again, was released in 2005 and reached number 61 in the Dutch album chart. The second album, Jumpstyle Madness, came out in 2007 and belongs to jumpstyle, a dance style performed to fast hardstyle. In 2006, under the name Bazzheadz, he recorded a new version of Boten Anna by the Swedish producer Basshunter, under the title Now You're Gone. That single reached number 18 in the Danish chart. According to the Dutch Wikipedia, it is his biggest hit.

Influence

In 2021 he began working with Reinier Zonneveld, with the record Trek Drop as their first success. Mental Theo shows how a Dutch DJ in the 1990s and afterwards could move between club, television and radio, and in doing so gave harder dance music a face for a large audience.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 2005Back Once Again
• 2007Jumpstyle Madness