“S Pri” birth name, Stefan Prieler was born in Baden (a town just south of Vienna), Austria. Ever since his early childhood, music has always been an important part of his life. He grew up listening to a mixture of music genres, starting from Hip Hop, R&B, Funk, to EDM based styles. His grandfather was a big fan of Jamaican legends like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, so his exposure to Reggae music started in his early childhood.
His intense love for Dancehall music and Jamaican culture started to emerge when he first discovered the album ‘Back to Basics’ of Beenie Man. He started gaining knowledge of Jamaican and by extension Caribbean culture, Rastafarianism and the history of Reggae and Dancehall music via the internet, documentaries, history books, etc. He was then introduced to the Jamaicans living in Austria and has been adopted into the Caribbean circle.
He attended a local elementary school, then high school and then a polytechnic school for software engineering in Wiener Neustadt. While in school he realized that listening to music wasn’t fulfilling enough and his passion for making music began to emerge. He started a Saturday-job and with the little money he earned, he began investing in his music. He bought a cheap studio microphone and audio interface, to set up his own “home recording studio” and began to “learn” to record, to compose instrumentals and to mix his productions.
His first stage experiences were made with local sound systems from his school area. From then on he performed at many small and big local events within the Lower Austrian and Vienna area.
After years of pursuing several projects and working with several people in the local scene, while trying to promote his material internationally, he caught the attention of a Jamaican musician/producer living in the UK, who approached him with the idea to spend some time there to pursue a project together. Not seeing much potential in Austria, he decided to take the chance and relocated to Manchester and trying to create waves from there…