Paul Oakenfold

Paul Oakenfold was born in London on August, 30 1963. At the age of 18 he was hooked up with his friend Trevor Fung and began mixing at the turntable. Later he moved to New York (heart of dance culture of those times), where he spent over a year and soaked up the club atmosphere through Larry Levan's genre-spanning sets. Back in England Oakenfold edited the column about hip hop music in Blues & Soul magazine and remixed tracks for such artists as Salt'n'Pepa and The Fresh Prince. Oakenfold was introduced to the club scene on the island of Ibiza and heard the new popular style of the 80's: mix of house, soul, Italian disco, and Indian music later dubbed the Balearic style. After returning to London he recreated Ibiza atmosphere playing Balearic during his parties in Project Club.

At the same time Oakenfold founded his own label Perfecto Records, brought up such virtuosos as Grace, Man With No Name, Timo Maas, Tilt, Quiwer, Hernan Cattaneo and others. Being a true DJ Paul tried to push his professional bounds. When trance exploded club world in 1999, Oakenfold took the helm and became an informal king of the British trance. At the same year he became the first electronic artist ever to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the biggest DJ in the world. During his career Paul remixed huge number of tracks for world famous artists as Smashing Pumpkins, Happy Mondays, Arrested Development, Massive Attack, M People, New Order, The Shamen, Simply Red, The Stone Roses, U2, Madonna… He also constructed a soundtrack for the Swordfish movie and released his own studio albums: Bunkka in 2002 and A Lively Mind in 2006.

These days Oakenfold spends most of his time in the USA. Having made his debut in the United Kingdom and having performed a great job, Paul finally became one of the world's most famous DJs. And even if now he appears in public only occasionally, be sure – he is creating music, looking for new talents for his label and going on tours popularizing dance music all over the world. In 2007, Paul presented a beautiful collection called Greatest Hits & Remixes. The track-listing included not only the maestro’s best songs from his two studio albums, but also some remixes he made for the compositions by other celebrated performers. In 2009 the Paul’s discography was enlarged by the new album Perfecto: Vegas (Mix) and the third studio work titled Pop Killer.