By Jorge Perezchica
For seven years, Kyle Domingo made the same pilgrimage to Coachella.
Like thousands of other music fans, he wandered the festival grounds with friends, returning year after year to one stage in particular: the Do LaB. It was where they discovered new artists, danced for hours, and imagined what it might be like to stand behind the booth instead of in front of it.
This year, that dream became reality.
“I’ve been coming since 2019,” says Domingo, better known as GUDFELLA. “The Do LaB is my friend group’s favorite stage of the whole festival. It was a full-circle moment to go do that.”
Less than twenty-four hours after his debut performance, the excitement hadn’t worn off.
“It was honestly better than anything I could have ever dreamed of,” he says. “I would look out and it was like a sea of people, and then I turned around and it was all my best friends behind me. I still can’t believe it happened yesterday.”
For an artist whose career has steadily climbed through streaming success, major collaborations, and performances at some of dance music’s biggest venues, Coachella represented something different. It wasn’t simply another festival booking. It was the realization of a vision he had carried with him long before GUDFELLA became a recognizable name.
“I daydream about this stuff a lot,” he says. “When I got backstage a couple years back, I always told myself, ‘When I play this, it’s going to be an event.’ It ended up being even better than I imagined.”
A Sound Built to Move People
Rather than approaching his Coachella debut as an opportunity to showcase every trick in his arsenal, GUDFELLA kept his focus surprisingly simple.
“I really wanted to go for something groovy,” he says. “Nothing too deep. Nothing too transient. I wanted people to move.”
That philosophy has become the foundation of his current creative chapter.
Opening with a collaboration alongside Yamaguchi, he built the set around rolling house grooves, soulful vocals, and songs that invited the crowd into a journey rather than a sprint.
Playing legendary rooms like Club Space and Brooklyn Mirage has reshaped how he thinks about DJing.
“You really have to plan your set like a journey,” he says. “I used to rush through songs a lot. Now I’ve learned to pace the crowd and let people live inside the music.”
That sense of storytelling extends beyond the stage and into his productions.
“I’ve always been into songs that sound like songs—not just beats,” he says. “I try to add an element of musicality to everything I make.”
Before There Was GUDFELLA
Long before festivals and headline sets, Domingo thought his future would look very different.
“I was honestly studying to become an engineer,” he says. “That was the entire plan.”
Music had always been part of his life, but it wasn’t until college in San Diego that everything changed.
“I say GUDFELLA started in San Diego because that’s where I fell in love with house music.”
Growing up in the Philippines, electronic music wasn’t part of his world.
“House music hadn’t really reached the Philippines,” he explains. “I discovered it after moving to America, and that really changed everything for me.”
The engineering degree never disappeared completely—it helped him become more comfortable with technology—but it was music that ultimately pulled him in another direction.
“When the music started speaking a little bit louder and taking me to different places, I followed that calling.”
The Long Game
Like many overnight success stories, GUDFELLA’s rise was anything but overnight.
One of the biggest turning points came when he collaborated with Tiësto.
“The song I made with Tiësto really solidified things,” he says. “Having him in your corner was such a life-changing thing for me.”
The collaboration led to representation and bigger opportunities, but only after years of persistence.
“It took maybe three or four years of just grinding for the love of the game before we got recognized.”
That experience shaped one of the biggest lessons he now shares with young producers.
“Stay true to your taste,” he says. “Don’t make music because you think it’ll make money. Make what you genuinely love. Once people recognize you in that lane, everything else starts happening.”
Finding His Own Voice
While many producers rely on guest vocalists, GUDFELLA eventually decided to become one himself.
The decision wasn’t born out of ambition—it was practicality.
“I got tired of waiting on vocals,” he says, laughing. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I just get good at doing vocals myself?’”
That curiosity eventually became another defining part of his artistry.
Inspired by songwriters like Kaskade and Vintage Culture, GUDFELLA has become less interested in making club tools and more interested in writing records people remember long after they leave the dance floor.
“They just make good music,” he says. “Good music is good music.”
The Next Chapter
If Coachella represented one milestone, his recent single, Morning Coffee, represents another.
“That was the first record that felt completely authentic,” he says. “It was something I would play in my own DJ sets and something I would listen to myself.”
For the first time, he feels like he’s fully settled into his own sound.
“I found the pocket,” he says. “Morning Coffee was really the first track that felt like it lived there.”
Today, his creative focus is clear.
“I’m in a groovy phase,” he says. “I want to make things that move people on the dance floor.”
Despite surpassing 100 million streams and performing on some of electronic music’s biggest stages, GUDFELLA isn’t interested in looking backward.
“I still have a lot to prove,” he says. “I’m a very competitive person. I want to keep putting out music that people love. I want to keep growing.”
That growth extends beyond his own career. As his platform expands, he hopes to create opportunities for other artists through future events and curated lineups featuring producers he believes deserve more attention.
Back to the Desert
After finally realizing the dream of playing Coachella, GUDFELLA isn’t leaving the desert behind.
Instead, he’s returning.
This August, he’ll bring his groove-forward sound back to Palm Springs for Splash House Weekend 2, continuing what has already become a defining year in his career.
For someone who spent years imagining himself on one of the desert’s biggest stages, it feels less like the end of a journey than the beginning of a new one.
“I just can’t wait to do it again next year,” he says.
SOCIAL: @gudfella