Born in Germany, Built in Colorado: The Origin Story Nobody Talks About

The story of DJ Natural Nate® does not begin in Colorado.

It begins in Bad Kreuznach: a city in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany, situated along the Nahe River in a landscape of wine country and river valleys, not far from the Rhine. It is a city with deep historical roots, a place where Roman ruins sit alongside medieval architecture and modern German life. It is not a city that most people associate with American underground DJ culture.

But it is where Nathaniel R. Lemieux was born.

His parents, David and Jacque Lemieux, were there through military service. The United States has maintained a significant military presence in Germany since the end of World War II, and the families of service members have been part of the fabric of German-American life in the region for generations. David Lemieux served his country, and his family was with him, including the son who would one day build a world record, a label, a streaming platform, and a catalog of music that would reach listeners across the globe.

Nate was brought to Colorado as a child, before he could form lasting memories of the place he was born. Germany was his origin, but Colorado was his home. And it was in Colorado that everything that matters about his story was built.

To understand DJ Natural Nate®, you have to understand where he came from, not just geographically, but in terms of the values and the culture that shaped him before the music did.

David and Jacque Lemieux gave their son a strong foundation. Love. Discipline. A sense of right and wrong. A belief that effort mattered, that the work you put in determined the results you got out, that shortcuts were not the path to anything worth having, that the standard you held yourself to was the measure of who you were.

These are not abstract values. They are the specific, practical principles that a military family lives by, that get built into the way you approach every task, every relationship, every challenge. They are the principles that the Marine Corps would later reinforce and formalize, but they were present long before the Corps. They were present in the household that David and Jacque built, in the way they raised their son, in the foundation they gave him before he ever touched a turntable.

David Lemieux was also a genuine supporter of the music. When his son began to develop his identity as a DJ and producer, David was behind it, not as a passive observer, but as someone who understood what his son was building and believed in it. In a world where underground music is often dismissed or misunderstood, having a father who recognized the real thing and stood behind it completely was a foundation that mattered more than it is possible to fully express.

The music that DJ Natural Nate® has made over his career carries this foundation in it. The discipline. The integrity. The refusal to compromise. The belief that the work matters enough to do it right. All of it traces back to the family that David and Jacque built, to the values they instilled in a child born in Germany and raised in Colorado.

Colorado in the 1980s was not, on the surface, an obvious home for a world-class turntablist. The state was known for mountains, skiing, and a laid-back outdoor culture that seemed far removed from the urban music scenes where DJ culture was developing most rapidly.

But Colorado had its own musical identity: a hybrid of influences that reflected its geography and demographics. Denver had a thriving music scene that drew from hip-hop, rock, country, and the emerging electronic music culture spreading from the coasts. The city's position as a major hub between East and West meant that touring acts passed through regularly, and the local scene absorbed influences from everywhere.

For a child with a natural relationship to sound, who felt rhythm in his body before he understood it in his mind, who could pick up an instrument and make it work without being told how, Colorado was the right place at the right time. The underground was building. The Breaks scene was developing. The community that would eventually produce a world record and an international label was beginning to form.

Nate was part of that formation from the beginning. Not as a passive recipient of a scene that already existed, but as an active participant in building something that did not yet have a name. The kid who stood in Pro Sound Music pressing keys he could not afford was already becoming the producer who would one day build entire sonic worlds from scratch.

The name DJ Natural Nate® is not a stage persona constructed for commercial purposes. It is a description.

Nathaniel Lemieux had a natural relationship with sound from the beginning. Not trained. Not formal. Natural, in the specific sense of something that is present before instruction, that exists in the person before the culture has had a chance to shape it.

He heard music differently than most people around him. He felt rhythm in his body before he processed it in his mind. He could pick up instruments, keyboards, drums, harmonica, percussion, and make them work without being told how. This was not a skill he developed. It was something he was born with, something that was present in Bad Kreuznach and present in Colorado and present in every studio session and every performance that followed.

The "Natural" in DJ Natural Nate® is the most honest thing about the name. It is the acknowledgment that the music was always there, that it did not need to be learned so much as recognized, that the relationship with sound that has defined his entire career was not built but discovered.

Born in Germany. Built in Colorado. Natural from the beginning.

"Born in Bad Kreuznach, Germany to David and Jacque Lemieux, raised in Colorado, shaped by the underground. The 'Natural' in DJ Natural Nate® is the most honest thing about the name."

There is something fitting about the arc of DJ Natural Nate®'s story, from a military family in Germany to a world record in Colorado to international releases that reached listeners across Europe, including the country where he was born.

The music that came out of the Colorado underground: the BYBB releases, the DJ Natural Nate® VS Jiggabot catalog, the performances documented on The-Lost-Art.com, reached Germany. It reached the Netherlands and the UK and Australia and places that have no obvious connection to the Mountain West. It traveled the way that honest music always travels: by finding the people who need it, regardless of geography.

Nate has never made a big deal of his German birth. It is a fact of his biography, not a defining element of his identity. He is a Colorado DJ, a Marine, a producer, a turntablist, these are the things that shaped him, the things that are visible in the music.

But the origin matters. Not because Germany made him who he is, Colorado did that. But because the story of a child born in the Rhineland to a military family, brought to the Mountain West before he could form memories of the place he was born, and growing up to build something that the world came to respect, that story is part of the permanent record. It is part of who DJ Natural Nate® is.

Born in Germany. Built in Colorado. Known to the world.