The Beginning

Jon Ørom and Jules Wolfson were introduced to each other in the Danish suburb of Gentofte by a mutual friend in 1996. Their common interest in rap music and trip hop led them to form the experimental rap group “USL”.

Jon Ørom had a bit of studio gear, which he had bought by working full time in a supermarket as a store manager. In the late ’90s, it was extremely costly to build a recording studio, so Jules Wolfson took a job as a cashier in the same supermarket so they could buy more studio equipment.

Using an AKAI S3000XL, a JV-1080 and an MPC2000XL routed through a 24-channel Behringer Eurodesk, they recorded their first rap demos on a CAD-100 in their 16-square-meter DIY studio in a community center in the provincial town of Birkerød.

The demo was distributed in 100 copies on cassette tapes through the local tobacconist. Jules Wolfson had meanwhile replaced the job in the supermarket with a job in a computer company, which meant that the two 19-year-old entrepreneurs’ follow-up demo could now be distributed on the then brand new home-burned CDs.

The fact that they could now, as the first self-publishers, sell their music on CD, meant that their sales multiplied. As a result, they were invited to perform at so-called “hip hop jams” in the Danish capital Copenhagen.

Full Time Producers

When Copenhagen’s underground rappers heard Jon Ørom and Jules Wolfson’s different music productions, which were created from samples of mainly classical music found at the local library accompanied by distinct drum sounds, many rappers made a pilgrimage to the provincial town of Birkerød to record over these different sounding productions.

The hype spread and Jon and Jules were headhunted to produce songs with established platinum artists for major labels, allowing Jon & Jules (as they now called themselves as a production team) to make a living from their music. However, Jon & Jules missed the creative control they had as USL and wanted to create their own project based on the knowledge they had gained by working major label projects.

The first major project

Jon & Jules had worked continuously with two young skaters, Niclas Genckel Petersen and Jannik Brandt Thomsen, who wanted to become rappers. The four had a strong friendship and Niclas and Jannik had continuously developed their songwriting talent by getting songwriting assignments from Jon & Jules. However, the four friends became more and more frustrated all the time working for major labels without being able to control the creative process.

In 2001, Jules gave a fire speech one day in which he suggested that the four friends should give up working on major label projects, but instead should create their own project with Niclas and Jannik as the focal point. It was a big financial risk, but with that, the group “Nik & Jay” was created.

Jon & Jules founded Nexus Music and the four friends completed a 4-track demo and immediately got a record deal with EMI Music with free creative control. The following year, they won the most coveted music award, the Danish Music Awards for “Best New Artist” and “Hit of the Year”.

The four friends’ project “Nik & Jay” sold above all expectations and the debut album was certified 7 times platinum. All subsequent singles and albums were also huge sales successes and won numerous of the biggest music awards.

The culmination

Nexus Music then expanded the roster with more new artists and producers and many new successful projects were released.

They developed and signed the R’n’B singer Joey Moe, making Denmark’s biggest club hit ever, “Yo-Yo”. Nexus also signed and produced Cisilia, the youngest ever winner of the Danish Music Awards for “Hit of the Year” and “Best New Artist”.

Jon & Jules went on several trips to the United States, where they produced songs with Usher, Ne-Yo and J. Holiday. Among other things, they succeeded in entering the American Billboard Top 200 in second place.

To this day, Nexus Music is Denmark’s most famous music production company with recording studios and artists in both Copenhagen and Los Angeles.

After 20 years in the ever-changing music industry, Nexus has always stuck to one thing: That the original idea of going all-in is always deeply rooted in the company’s DNA.