Paul Oakenfold

Some DJs can claim to be tastemakers; Paul Oakenfold turned an entire nation on to the very idea of electronic dance music. Oakenfold, born in London in 1963, began DJing soul music as a teenager, and at 18, he moved to New York, where he discovered hip-hop and disco. He first made history in 1987 when he returned to London from Ibiza with a suitcase full of the house music that was popular on the island, planting the seeds for the UK’s rave revolution. That was just the beginning: In the ’90s, Oakenfold’s driving style of trance music would help lay the foundations for later waves of EDM, while his productions and remixes for artists like Madonna, U2 and The Rolling Stones gave subterranean electronic styles a definitive overground push. His own albums display Oakenfold’s radically open-minded approach: On 2002’s Bunkka, he folded together big beat, trance, alternative rock and more, while opening the studio doors to Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell, rapper Ice Cube and even classical ensemble Kronos Quartet.