Hailing from Lisbon, Buraka Som Sistema took hip-hop, techno, zouk from the Caribbean and kuduro from Angola to fashion an irresistible dance music sound that quickly wooed anyone who heard it.

Growing up in New York City in the ’70s, Louis Flores came to hip-hop like so many other Latino kids his age: by rushing to contribute as it sprung up around him, first as a dancer and then as a DJ ...

There are audiophiles, and then there’s Tony Andrews. He has been building PAs since the heyday of Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies. Today his Funktion-One soundsystems are the in-house sound at many of ...

For Alice Bag, punk was always more than just music – it’s a way of life. Born in East Los Angeles to immigrant Mexican parents, Bag first embraced music’s riotous energy when she founded the Bags ...

The first thing I chopped was a [jazz fusion group] Return To Forever jam. Was there an old Roland sampler, the MS something? Whatever. It was big, it was grey, it had a red button on it. I chopped up ...

Maurice Fulton’s productions have been key to the growth of house music worldwide, both as a solo artist under and tireless collaborator. In his lecture at the 2006 Red Bull Music Academy, Fulton went ...

Chez Damier has devoted his life to dance music. After starting out in Chicago, he set up fabled Detroit nightclub the Music Institute with Derrick May and Alton Miller, looked after the business ...

Van Dyke Parks is an arranger and composer best known for writing the lyrics to a certain lost classic by the Beach Boys – but that’s not even the half of it. His first arranging job was on The Jungle ...

Randy Muller is the brains behind a stack of 1970s classics. Working with bands such as Brass Construction, BT Express and Skyy, he brought orchestral strings to funk, was at the forefront of synth ...

Headquartered in the Culver City section of Los Angeles, Damon Riddick has helmed a renaissance of boogie, modern soul and electro-funk – from his storied Monday-night Funkmosphere parties to his ...

Ryuichi Sakamoto came to worldwide fame as a member of influential Japanese synth-pop outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra. Making abundant use of new synthesizers, samplers and recording technology, they ...

Craig Leon is an American record producer and composer who, as A&R at Sire Records in New York, was instrumental in launching seminal artists such as the Ramones, Blondie and Suicide, producing each ...