Paul Van Dyk

Typically, dance music DJ/producers grew up as enthusiastic music nerds who spent all their free time at the record store. For trance and house DJ/producer Paul van Dyk, there were no record stores to hang out in his Soviet-controlled East German home. Van Dyk got his music fix from the Western Berlin radio stations and mixtapes that were smuggled in. Through that, he says, his connection to the world opened; it was a perfect foreshadowing to a career of playing music for millions of people each year across the globe. As a DJ, Van Dyk has earned countless awards and honors, and has been a formidable name in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs list for about 15 years (having earned the #1 spot two years in a row.) As a producer, he’s released six studio albums (including the Grammy-nominated album Reflections), a plethora of DJ mixes (his next being The Politics of Dancing 3, which is due later this year), and has collaborated on a number of video game and movie soundtracks, including the Grammy Award-winning soundtrack for The Dark Knight. Though he’s accomplished just about everything all DJ/producers could hope for, he shows no signs of hanging up his headphones anytime soon. (Sam Mendez)