Pete Tong

''For Pete Tong, whose consummate involvement in all areas of dance music has made him a genuine household name in the UK, these are exciting times: every aspect of his considerably varied career is currently undergoing either consolidation, change, or creation anew.

As a DJ, not only is Tong is enjoying increasing international popularity, especially in the USA, plus Australia and the Far East as part of a new worldwide tour, he is also returning to Pure Pacha in Ibiza this summer for his residency. As a broadcaster who brought dance to the masses via his Essential Selection show at Radio One - he continues to have one of the most listened to shows at Radio 1 both live and on-line with millions of listeners weekly not just in the UK but worldwide too. As a producer, Tong is set to release some new material in various guises plus some film soundtracks in the not too distant future. As an innovator, Tong has just completed the world's very first collection of TV-style music shows, aired weekly direct to mobile phones. And as an icon, Tong has been the inspiration behind a new feature film "It's All Gone Pete Tong".

Such a range of high-profile activities seems a long way removed from Tong's beginnings as a mobile DJ in Kent during his teens. But for all his current fame and acclaim, you'd be hard put to find someone whose progression has been more organic. In fact, in many ways, Pete's story runs parallel to the growth of dance music in the UK.

When he was at school, hard rock ruled the roost, and Pete tried playing in bands, but after seeing a DJ playing actual records at a school disco and deciding "that looked like much more fun," he never looked back. "DJing just seemed to be my vocation." Initially, Pete followed that vocation to Soul Weekenders in otherwise quiet sea-side towns like Caister and Prestatyn, where he "was always the youngster" who ran with a crowd of old-school DJs known as the Soul Funk Mafia.

His involvement in that scene landed him a day job at Blues & Soul magazine where he soon became features editor and began making appearances on the pirates and BBC's Radio London. Out in clubland, meanwhile, he quickly learned a maxim that still holds true today: "the only way to do it is to run your own club, create your own scene." So Tong DJ'd a club in Baker Street called [Family] Function, and simultaneously booked bands for a weekend alternative night: the first one he hired was the then-unknown Culture Club.

An ability to explain what was then considered a fringe genre found him presenting a dance music segment on Radio 1's Peter Powell show. But noticing that daytime DJs had no control over the music they played, Tong eschewed national radio opportunities, launching a soul show on Kent's newly-launched Invicta station instead. By this time, his growing reputation for recognising new talent saw him leave Blues and Soul for an A&R position at London Records, a job he has held, in one manner or another, for almost twenty years.

In the mid-eighties, the old guard was swept away, as first the hip-hop and electro sounds from New York, and then house music from Chicago, techno from Detroit and the 'Balearic Beat' in Ibiza, were embraced by a new set of young London promoters and DJs. Pete Tong and his friend Nicky Holloway DJ'd in Ibiza for the first time in 1986. The following year Holloway went with Oakenfold and Danny Rampling, and upon return to London, succeeded in emulating the Ibiza experience across clubland. The house generation was born.

Tong, in the thick of it all, was hired by Capital Radio to broadcast to the new clubbers, which helped give him the clout to start a 'label within a label' at London. Ffrr Records was born in 1988: hitting the charts immediately with Salt n Pepa's 'Push It', Tong and ffrr became famous for conducting lightning raids on the latest underground hits and propelling them up the charts. "I've been lucky," says To