Moby

Moby — born Richard Melville Hall in Harlem on September 11, 1965 — got his nickname as a baby, with his father tying it to the family’s claimed connection to Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick. Whatever the actual family tree looks like, the name stuck, and Moby went on to become one of the most recognizable names to ever cross over from underground electronic music into the mainstream.

He’d already made noise in Europe with his 1991 single “Go,” but it was 1999’s Play that changed everything. The album, which blended sampled blues and gospel vocals with electronic production, eventually sold around 12 million copies worldwide after essentially every track on it got licensed for a film, commercial, or TV show — a level of cultural saturation almost no electronic album has matched before or since. It turned Moby from a respected dance music figure into a household name.

What makes Moby’s catalog interesting is how much he refused to stay in one lane. He came up through punk rock before moving into dance music, and albums like Everything Is Wrong (1995), 18 (2002), and Hotel (2005) show him drifting between ambient, rock, and downtempo without ever fully settling down. Along the way he’s collaborated with a genuinely wild range of artists, from Gwen Stefani on “South Side” to Public Enemy, David Bowie, and Lou Reed.

Outside the studio, Moby’s just as known for his activism. He’s been vegan since 1987 and has spent decades using his platform for animal rights causes. In 2020 he founded Little Walnut Productions to support creative activism projects, and he’s long run MobyGratis, a site offering his music for free to independent and student filmmakers — he relaunched it in April 2025 with 500 new tracks added to the library.

He’s stayed busy in recent years too, releasing Ambient 23 and Resound NYC in 2023, following up with Always Centered at Night in 2024 featuring a run of guest vocalists, and hitting the road for a 25th anniversary Play tour across Europe that same year. He’s got Future Quiet on the way in 2026, proof that more than three decades in, Moby’s still not interested in slowing down.