Richy Ahmed

A Tyneside name on an Ibiza bill

Richy Ahmed was born Richard Ahmed in South Shields, at the mouth of the Tyne, and Hot Creations' own artist page still files him simply under Newcastle. The influences listed against his name — disco, techno, funk, electro and hip hop — are a wider spread than the house-and-techno tag he usually carries. His professional activity is dated from 2010, which is also the year the label he helped start began releasing records, so the career and the imprint are effectively the same age.

What came before that is thinly documented compared with the Ibiza years. By 2010 he was close enough to Jamie Jones and Lee Foss to co-found Hot Creations with them, and the label describes him as its main resident rather than a signing — someone who was in the room while the thing was assembled. The parties the label fed did the rest: Paradise at DC10 on Thursdays alongside Jones, and the Hot Natured shows that ran through London, Detroit, Barcelona, New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

The records that did the work

His own releases have come out through Hot Creations, Hotflush, Rinse Recordings and Strictly Rhythm. The breakthrough was the Sneaky Acid EP, which Hot Creations used for its fiftieth catalogue release — a decision that says more about his standing inside the label than any press line could. Revisiting his catalogue in October 2025, Mixmag Spain picked it as the record that announced him, built on acid lines that behave more playfully than the genre normally permits.

Two tracks did the international lifting. Can't You See, a vocal house record, opened the doors across Ibiza and the UK festival circuit. The Drums went further: Pete Tong took it as an Essential New Tune, and Mixmag Spain reads it as the percussive, hypnotic turn that showed he was writing for extended sets rather than for a single peak-time drop. Jammin, released through Play It Say It in 2019, is the funk-leaning bridge between the hip-hop he came up on and the material he plays now.

The institutional markers line up behind the music. He appeared in Resident Advisor's Top 100 DJs in both 2013 and 2014, and his BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix was broadcast on 29 November 2014. The venue history reaches past the island too — Circoloco at DC10, Movement in Detroit, Watergate in Berlin, Burning Man, Verboten in New York, Hideout in Croatia and Glastonbury's fortieth anniversary, with fabric in London, Sankeys in Manchester and Basics in Leeds as the domestic constants.

Four Thirty Two, and the darker half of the catalogue

Four Thirty Two is described on its own Bandcamp page, flatly, as a record label conceived and curated by Richy Ahmed. It exists as the outlet for the heavier, less immediate end of what he plays, with artwork commissioned release by release rather than poured into a house template. The imprint was relaunched in April 2021, and the record that did it was More Energy / I Need It — his first studio release with Jamie Jones after years of back-to-back sets, issued on 23 April 2021 with remixes from Butch and from the then-emerging UK producer Ray Mono. More Energy carried Ahmed's own vocal hook; I Need It leaned on piano and 909 patterns.

Since then the label has functioned as a platform for other people's records as much as his own, carrying Jansons' Mode EP and a remix of Mike Dunn and Garry Todd's Bring Me Down, among others. It also operates as a party brand: Four Thirty Two nights have taken Room 1 at fabric, put Mathew Jonson on live at Vista in Ibiza, and closed MiNT Club in Leeds with Ahmed playing all night long — the format that has become his signature.

Where he stands now

The most significant recent change to his touring year was not his to make. Paradise, the brand he has been resident to since the DC10 days, moved its 2025 Ibiza season to [UNVRS], running sixteen consecutive Wednesdays from 18 June to 1 October 2025 under a concept titled Sands of Solaris. Ahmed was named among the headline talent for that season alongside Marco Carola, The Martinez Brothers, Joseph Capriati, Loco Dice, Seth Troxler, Chris Stussy and Hot Since 82, with Jones headlining every week. Island listings now place Ahmed across three brands — Paradise, Do Not Sleep and Solid Grooves — and across DC10, Amnesia, Ushuaïa and [UNVRS], with four dates announced for the 2026 season.

The confirmed diary beyond the island is short and spread across two countries. He plays The Penthouse at Five Palm Jumeirah in Dubai on 14 November 2026, then Unit 13 in Nottingham on 20 November. On 28 November he is at NX Newcastle for a Hot Creations night with Lee Foss, TeeDee and FIFI Forte, doors at 21:00 — the closest thing on the schedule to a hometown show. The year closes on 27 December at Depot Mayfield in Manchester, where the Warehouse Project's Kaluki takeover bills him back-to-back with Pirate Copy beneath a four-way headline of Jamie Jones, Joseph Capriati, Max Dean and Luke Dean, on a bill that also includes Mau P, wAFF, Sidney Charles, Olive F and Manda Moor.

The shape of a set

The clearest recent statement of how he wants to be heard came at Fabrik in Madrid on 18 October 2025, when Mixmag and LOOP put him in the Crystal room for a 360-degree all-night-long set — the booth in the centre of the floor, the crowd surrounding it, and no other headliner booked to interrupt the arc. Mixmag Spain's framing of that show is useful because it describes a method rather than a mood: he constructs the night from start to finish, and across a marathon set the narrative and the sustained groove matter more than immediate impact.

That explains why so much of his billing now splits into two formats. On a festival or multi-room bill he turns up for a shorter window, often paired — the Kaluki back-to-back with Pirate Godly aside, his Ibiza slots sit inside long Paradise line-ups where he is one voice among eight. At his own Four Thirty Two nights and at one-off bookings like Madrid, he takes the whole room for the whole night, and the records that made his name — The Drums in particular — are built for exactly that length.