WEarePANEL was founded in the fall of 2009 by LA producer Darius Fong. Attempting to uphold the traditions of humans recommending music, WEarePANEL pulled together a serious roster of taste influencers which included djs, producers, record collectors and music journalists.

Through our web and iPhone applications (design & developed by friends at Substantial), we showcased editorial content as selected by these influential curators (the “Panel”). Not only could you stream music via the iPhone, but the web app featured an archive of album selections, music reviews and blog posts.

In 2011, WEarePANEL realized an even higher calling. As online music streaming sites increase in number, music sales continue to drop. Unfortunately, for artists to maintain minimum salaries through these sites, they would need 4 million play counts per month. Bottom line is, artists cannot survive off music streaming sites, they need revenue from album purchases.

As a result, we decided to go beyond upholding the traditions of humans recommending music, and become advocates for buying and sharing music legally. After all it is our passion for music that drives what we do. We pledged to support artists we care about with human recommendations, and we would love for you to join us.

Our Founder

You know that awkward kid you see wondering around record stores, flipping records cluelessly and pretending that he is cool. That was the story of our founder Darius Fong.

Darius grew up in a city of eight million people, and a family of doctors. He discovered his first love playing Chopin on black and white keys. When he was in high school, he was handed a Ben Harper album, Welcome to the Cruel World, and since then he has discovered a world of blues and jazz, which eventually led him to rock. He constantly found himself in the company of Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Simon Garfunkel and Joe Pass.

Darius founded WEarePANEL because had he not been introduced to so much cool music, he would never have realized his destiny in music. Today, with Grammy winning and nominated albums, Darius continues to pretend that he’s cool and to produce music. He cares about artists and their art and he has no plans to ever stop being their advocate. 

To find out more about his work and his blog, visit: http://panelphonic.com.