With an itinerant childhood as part of an Air Force family, Armand Van Helden found a strong through line growing up via his love of music. Buying his first drum machine at age 13, he first began DJing two years later, with a focus mostly on hip-hop and freestyle.
Whilst in Boston studying at college he undertook his first DJ residencies and forays into remix and production work, his music edging away from hip-hop and towards nascent house sounds.
Alongside the likes of contemporaries Todd Terry, Erick Morillo, Roger Sanchez and Masters at Work, Van Helden entered the early 90s with prolific recordings for labels like Strictly Rhythm, Henry St., Logic and ZYX. By the mid-90s his production and remix work started to creep overground, with 1994’s ‘Witchdoctor’ becoming a worldwide hit. His 1996 remix of ‘Professional Widow’ for Tori Amos not only defined THE club sound of the mid-90s, it also became a UK Number One.
The UK enthusiasm for Van Helden’s sound resulted in him signing to London Records for the UK for 3 albums: returning to his old-school rap roots with the party breakbeat album‘Sample Slayer: Enter The Meatmarket’, and the forward thinking hit house of ‘2 Future 4 U’ and ‘Killing Puritans’. Alongside his now legendary reworks for the likes of Sneaker Pimps, C.J. Bolland, and The Bucketheads during this period, his original productions matched this energy and success, with the likes of 1999’s ‘You Don’t Know Me’ (another UK Number One) dominating dancefloors and airwaves worldwide, and its follow up ‘Flowerz’, another top 20.
In the time Van Helden’s creative output has proved unstoppable, with four decades of remixes (working with everyone from Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson and Sam Smith to Daft Punk, Jungle 70 and Majestic), collaborating with Dizzee Rascal for yet another UK Number One (2009’s ‘Bonkers’), the Grammy-nominated Duck Sauce project (teaming up with A-Track), and continuing to release across a plethora of the world’s best dance music labels.
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