Paul van Dyk | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Matthias Paul |
Born |
Eisenhüttenstadt, East Germany |
16 December 1971
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Years active | 1990–present |
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Website | paulvandyk |
Paul van Dyk - My World (Official music video) (1994) |
Matthias Paul (pronounced [maˈtiːas ˈpaʊ̯l]), better known by his stage name Paul van Dyk (pronounced [fan ˈdʏk]; born 16 December 1971 in Eisenhüttenstadt, East Germany) is a German Grammy Award-winning DJ, record producer and musician. One of the first true superstar DJs, van Dyk was the first artist to receive a Grammy Award nomination in the newly added category of Best Dance/Electronic album for his 2003 release Reflections. He was named the World's number one DJ in both 2005 and 2006, something only few DJs have ever achieved. He was the first ever DJ to be named number one by Mixmag in 2005. By 2008, he had sold over 3 million albums worldwide.
A trance producer starting in the early 1990s, van Dyk quickly achieved popularity with his remix of "Love Stimulation" by Humate on the record label MFS in 1993 and with his hit single "For an Angel" but, in recent times, he no longer likes to describe his music as trance, but rather simply as electronic music.
Van Dyk is currently the radio host of "Vonyc Sessions with Paul" on Dash Radio.
Paul van Dyk grew up in East Berlin in a single parent household; his father left him and his mother when he was four years old. While living there, he worked as a broadcast technician and began training to become a carpenter. Paul van Dyk claims his musical education came from radio. Where he grew up there were no record stores at which to buy music, so he kept in touch with the world beyond the Berlin Wall by secretly listening to the popular but forbidden Western radio stations RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) and SFB and mixtapes occasionally smuggled into the country and copied among school friends.