Henry Russell Walter, known professionally as Cirkut, is a Canadian record producer, musician and songwriter, currently based in Los Angeles, California. Beginning his music career as a member of production team Let’s Go to War in 2008, he worked for many artists like Britney Spears and The Weeknd. His career skyrocketed when introduced to mass producer Dr. Luke in 2011 and eventually becoming what The Hollywood Reporter describes as his “right-hand man and main production partner”. They worked steadily for four years, working enormously with the likes of Kesha, Jessie J, Katy Perry and many others.
However, after accusations being made in regards to Dr. Luke’s reliability in the music industry between 2013-14, Luke’s career began to spiral. Their partnership’s clientele shrunk exponentially in 2016 and artists/record labels refused to have his name credited on any material. Given that Cirkut was heavily involved with Luke’s music, people started to consider whatever Cirkut produced or wrote, Dr. Luke contributed to also and was just hiding behind Cirkut’s name. This led to the producers parting ways with each other in 2018.
Cirkut began finding other ways to produce new material but, considering that his career centred around what Luke did, he found it difficult to find his own identity and style that separated him from that chapter of his life. He eventually found solo fame when working with Ava Max and has been embraced by record producer Max Martin and his team of producers under MXM Studios and Wolf Cousins Music.
