While Dylan Ragland and Ricky Mears meant to start a side project, they weren’t totally expecting to create SIDEPIECE, the GRAMMY-nominated house duo that’s clocked more than 537 million global streams since its inception.

The two producers – Ragland makes music as fan favorite Party Favor and Mears produces as dancefloor igniter NITTI – first linked via DM in 2019 to share track ideas. Sensing their musical chemistry, they jumped on Facetime. By the end of the call, they’d registered the @youasidepiece social handles and their own figurative side piece had been born.

“It started out as a fun passion project because we both love and care about house music,” says Ragland, “but it’s grown so much bigger than we originally planned.”

Indeed, success came fast for the pair. SIDEPIECE’s second single, the 2020 Diplo collaboration “On My Mind,” aggregated more than 222 million Spotify streams and earned the trio a 2021 GRAMMY nomination for Best Dance Recording. A flurry of hit singles have followed, with SIDEPIECE carving out a signature sound rooted in catchy vocals – “the most important element,” says Ragland – and the ever-intoxicating bump and grind house groove. Spanning tech house, bass house and beyond, tracks including “Acrobatic,” “Temptation,” “Sextacy” and their latest — the dancefloor banger “A Milli (SIDEPIECE Remix),” their remix of the iconic Lil Wayne track — are quintessentially SIDEPIECE: party-starting club records with a pop-lean and serious sex appeal.

“Huge streaming numbers are cool,” says Mears, “but seeing people in the crowd singing along to the song, that makes it all feel real.”