PAUL OAKENFOLD

Say the words ‘Paul Oakenfold’ and you instantly think of dance music, but the superstar DJ and producer has influenced a lot more than that – like that’s not enough in itself – over the last four decades. He begun his career proper at Champion Records and in his A&R position there signed Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince and Salt-n-Pepa, tipping an already burgeoning hip hop movement over into the mainstream. But it was on a visit to Ibiza in 1987 that Oakenfold, along with Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Ian St Paul, discovered a Balearic house sound, and brought that back to the UK to kickstart dance music, the whole Madchester movement and club culture in general. Since