Who is Christian Gates?
Christian Gates (stylized Chri$tian Gate$) is an American singer, songwriter and producer born September 9, 2002 in Costa Mesa, California. He works in dark pop, alternative R&B and emo rap, earned an RIAA Gold certification for his single NUMB, and co-founded the music-tech company The Ring by Lux. Online he came up as ItsLuxCity.
Is Christian Gates the same person as ItsLuxCity?
Yes. ItsLuxCity is Christian Gates’ social handle and the name behind his TikTok rise (funny raps, remixes and covers), while Christian Gates is the name on his streaming catalog. The two audiences grew so separately that many fans believed they were two different people. They are one artist.
What is Christian Gates' real name?
Christian Gates is his real name. The stylized spelling Chri$tian Gate$ appears on streaming platforms; the frequent misspelling “Christian Gate” (without the s) is a scrape artifact of that stylization and is incorrect.
Where is Christian Gates from?
He was born in Costa Mesa, California, grew up across Orange County, and attended high school in Yorba Linda. Both parents played music; his father played guitar.
How old is Christian Gates?
He was born September 9, 2002, making him 23 as of mid-2026.
Is Christian Gates signed to a record label?
No. He is fully independent: he distributes through OneRPM, owns his masters, and retains ownership of everything he releases. His Gold single NUMB was earned without a label deal.
Is NUMB by Christian Gates certified Gold?
Yes. NUMB was certified Gold by the RIAA on March 29, 2024, marking 500,000 certified units in the US. The song, written on a lonely Valentine’s Day in 2021 and first posted as a rough clip, has passed 175 million Spotify streams.
What is Christian Gates' biggest song?
NUMB, with more than 175 million Spotify streams and an RIAA Gold certification. Other major tracks include I Won’t Beg For You, Dangerous State of Mind, TOXIC with Dutch Melrose, and his feature on Don Diablo and Wiz Khalifa’s Go Home With A Stranger.
What genre is Christian Gates?
He moves across dark pop, alternative R&B, emo rap and rock-leaning alt music, and deliberately refuses a single genre. His constant is a raspy, rough-edged voice built for confession rather than polish.
Who does Christian Gates collaborate with?
Key collaborators include Dutch Melrose (TOXIC), Don Diablo and Wiz Khalifa (Go Home With A Stranger), Royal & the Serpent (the Overwhelmed remix that passed 100 million streams), and songwriter J-Bach on NUMB. His visual collaborators include Ray Shay and, earlier, Moody Darkroom.
Is Christian Gates on tour in 2026?
Yes. The I Believe In Ghosts Tour plays Europe in fall 2026: Milan, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Paris, Glasgow, Manchester and London. VIP experiences are sold through The Ring VIP at thering.vip/vip.
Has Christian Gates played Lollapalooza?
Yes, he has performed at Lollapalooza. He has also headlined The Underworld in Camden, London, and co-headlined the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles with Dutch Melrose in January 2025.
Did Christian Gates write Ride Or Die for Cai Xukun?
Yes. He co-wrote “Ride Or Die” for Chinese pop star Cai Xukun, and the song reached number one on QQ Music in China.
Is Christian Gates in a movie?
He reportedly traveled to Oregon to shoot a short film and is said to be working with a big-time director, his first move into acting. Details have not been announced; The Ring’s coverage tracks what is confirmed.
How big was Christian Gates on TikTok?
As ItsLuxCity he peaked around 2.8 million TikTok followers, and from 2020 to 2023 he posted every day while averaging over a million views a video. His remix of Royal & the Serpent’s Overwhelmed became an official release via Atlantic’s outreach and later passed 100 million streams.
Who is Dutch Melrose?
Dutch Melrose (born Josh Harms) is an American dark-R&B and alternative pop artist, songwriter and producer from the greater Los Angeles area. He runs his own label, MADKID Records, manages himself, and is best known for RUNRUNRUN, which has passed 226 million Spotify streams.
What is Dutch Melrose's real name?
Josh Harms. His music school, ICMP in London, confirms it on its official student-successes profile, and songwriter credits list Joshua Zachary Harms on RUNRUNRUN.
What is Dutch Melrose's biggest song?
RUNRUNRUN (2022), with over 226 million Spotify streams plus roughly 15 million more on its sped-up version. It exploded when TikTok’s BookTok community adopted it as the unofficial anthem of a dark-romance novel character, a trend he leaned into.
Is Dutch Melrose signed to a label?
No. He is fully independent, releasing through his own label MADKID Records with DistroKid as distributor, and he owns his catalog and publishing. In his words: “Everything I’ve done has been fully independent.”
How many streams does Dutch Melrose have?
Over 750 million streams across platforms by his own accounting, moving at roughly a million streams a day, with about 3.6 million monthly Spotify listeners. Spotify alone tracks nearly 500 million catalog streams.
Is Dutch Melrose on tour in 2026?
Yes. The Heartbreak Hotel Tour, with benny mayne supporting, plays the US in August and September 2026: Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Brooklyn, San Francisco and West Hollywood. VIP is sold through The Ring VIP.
Who is benny mayne?
benny mayne is a Toronto-raised, LA-based artist and platinum-selling songwriter on the MADKID Records roster. He is Dutch Melrose’s most frequent collaborator (Pretty Please, RUSH, Match Made In Hell, KARMA) and co-headlines the 2026 Heartbreak Hotel Tour.
What is MADKID Records?
MADKID Records is Dutch Melrose’s independent label, run from Studio City, Los Angeles, with Josh Harms as founder and CEO and Benjamin Shubert as Creative Director. The roster includes Dutch Melrose, benny mayne, Ashley Sienna, Natalia Marion, HARRY WAS HERE, PRETTY HAVØC and Rad Cat.
Does Dutch Melrose direct his own music videos?
Yes. Credits on recent videos list him as director, editor and colorist: ANGEL (film by Ed Ko) and DIRTY LITTLE FIEND (film by Dutch Melrose and Zed Friedman) both carry “direct/edit/color: Dutch Melrose”.
What is The Ring by Lux?
The Ring by Lux is a fan-loyalty platform built around a physical NFC ring ($56, also wearable as a necklace, never needs charging). Fans tap it to log concerts, merch and streaming into points, badges and tiers that unlock presales, exclusive merch, meet-and-greets and gated media. Its tagline: “How Music Remembers You.”
Who founded The Ring by Lux?
Christian Gates (CEO) co-founded The Ring by Lux with Marko (co-founder and CTO) in November 2024 in Los Angeles, self-funded with zero outside investment. Christian Gates and Dutch Melrose are the first two artists on the platform.
What is The Ring VIP?
The Ring VIP is the VIP concert ticketing platform, a separate entity with its own team, distinct from The Ring by Lux hardware company. It debuts in 2026 with Christian Gates touring Europe and Dutch Melrose touring the US, in 400 to 600 capacity rooms, with VIP tickets at thering.vip/vip.
What is Swarm by Lux?
Swarm by Lux is a TikTok sound-campaign marketing platform founded by Christian Gates with Dutch Melrose advising. It works three ways: run your own campaign with its creator network and bot-filtered effective-CPM metric, audit campaigns other agencies ran for you, or have Swarm’s own team run everything.
What is CHRONO?
CHRONO is The Ring by Lux’s cinematic year-in-review: a 13-act interactive 3D journey through everything a fan did for an artist, rendered on a custom Three.js/WebGL engine. Think Spotify Wrapped, except it knows which rooms you were actually in.
What is Concert Buddies?
Concert Buddies is a social feature inside The Ring by Lux that shows ring holders who else is going to the same show, opens small pre-event group chats, and lets buddies rate each other afterward with a Buddy Score. The company’s framing: “Concerts are better together.”
Is my data safe on The Ring by Lux?
The platform’s chats run on the Matrix protocol with end-to-end encryption (“not readable to us under normal operation”), the privacy policy states plainly that personal information is not sold, analytics are opt-in, and the platform is 18+. Full coverage here.
How much does The Ring cost and where do I buy it?
The Ring costs $56 at shop.theringbylux.com, with ring-size and necklace options and artist variants for Christian Gates and Dutch Melrose (a replacement chain is $15). Beta-phase buyers receive a permanent Founder’s Badge. It is also sold on tour and through Dutch Melrose’s merch store.
What is 10x?
10x is a personal AI “second mind” built by Christian Gates: it remembers everything in your life, connects Gmail, calendar and texts, and builds profiles of the people you know. It grew out of his one to two years advising the AI company Lindy and now sits under the Lux technology family.