Chicago's Luis Baro has devoted most of this life to house music. His first influences include The Hot Mix 5 on WBMX, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gay, MJ along with the great Wax Trax records. This all played a major role in his education in music. He became a promoter in the late 80s and threw many underground Disco and B-Boy parties in dance halls and lofts all over Chicago. In 1994, Luis caught the rave bug and started the production company Vibeonauts (a.k.a. VBNTS), whose main goal was to break cutting-edge music and throw large-scale, concert style events with electronic music. Until 2001, VBNTS parties were often gargantuan events that drew crowds of up to 8,000 people. After so much success, Luis decided to take the show on the road and did events in St. Louis, Milwaukee, Madison, Detroit, Ohio and Nashville. Through Luis’s events he was able to lock down many of the dance music industry’s top DJs and live acts by booking them first and fostering solid working relationships.
From 1996-2001, Luis was the EDM talent buyer and promoter for the legendary Chicago clubs Smart Bar and Metro. This where he started to pursue this passion for DJing. With a captive audience and a devoted crowd Luis was able to prefect the formula of what make people dance. At Smart Bar there were many unforgettable nights with Louie Vega, Carl Cox, Cassius and Thomas Bangalter to name a select few.
Luis knew his music and life style needed a radio outlet so he teamed with a close friend and conceptualized, established and launched Sonic Boom on Q101. Converting the unconverted was the main goal. Sonic Boom had great success it was the second most-listened-to program in its time slot. It’s success lead to the opportunity to play music on a national, digital medium. Luis moved to the Washington Dc in 2001 to work at XM Radio, where he is currently Program Director and On Air talent on The Move Channel 80 and XM Chill. XM Radio has gone from zero listeners to 18+ million in six short years. Through his radio opportunity Luis has been able to travel and world and play too many audiences.
