Ulu Records takes Beatport's May Hype Label, and the timing isn't an accident

Beatport's Hype Label of the Month is one of the few editorial nods on the store that still moves units, and for May 2026 it went to Ulu Records, the London imprint built by Robin M. Five years in, the label has stopped being a vanity outlet and turned into one of the more reliable engines for melodic and Afro house coming out of the UK.

Who is behind Ulu Records?

Ulu was started in London in 2021 by Robin Michelangelo, who produces as Robin M, alongside manager Methe Buhl. The first release was his own EP, "Ho'omaka Ana / Spirit Of Sarangi," a record that set the tone: world textures, a sarangi line, and an Afro-leaning floor pulse rather than a generic peak-time formula. The name is the Hawaiian word for growth and expansion, and Beatport's own writeup framed the imprint as feeling "less like a label and more like a movement still unfolding."

That framing matters because it lines up with how the catalogue actually reads. There is no single Ulu sound locked to a BPM or a key. It is melodic, deep and Afro house pulled from sources well beyond London, which is exactly the kind of remit that ages well when subgenre fashions turn over.

What has the label actually achieved?

Since that 2021 debut, Ulu has stacked platinum-certified releases and put records at the top of Beatport's charts. The roster and extended family include Enoo Napa, VERTIC, Khenya, Hyenah, Emanuele Esposito and David Mayer, and the support list reads like a who's who of the melodic and Afro lanes: Black Coffee, Diplo, Keinemusik, Bedouin and Pete Tong have all backed the output.

A label with platinum plaques and Black Coffee in the support column is not hype in the marketing sense. It is a catalogue that DJs already trust.

Why is the event series the real story?

The part that separates Ulu from a hundred other well-curated imprints is that it built a touring footprint to match the discography. The event series has landed in London, Amsterdam, Nairobi and Copenhagen, which is a deliberately Afro-forward map rather than the usual Europe-only circuit. Nairobi in particular signals that the Afro house framing is a real commitment to the source, not a sound borrowed from a distance.