Alan Walker is a British-Norwegian producer based in Bergen who taught himself music production from YouTube tutorials as a teenager, releasing his first track "Fade" through NoCopyrightSounds in 2014 before reworking it the following year as "Faded" with vocals from Iselin Solheim. That second version went multi-platinum in more than a dozen countries and crossed a billion Spotify streams, anchoring his 2018 debut album Different World and turning him into one of the youngest acts ever inside DJ Mag's Top 20. His entire visual identity is built around anonymity, with a hoodie, face mask and self-designed "AW" logo meant to signal that "anyone can be a Walker," a fan-as-collective concept he has carried through five studio albums.