Paul van Dyk is a German dance music producer and DJ who has played a pivotal role in shaping the trance music sound and genre in the 1990’s since starting DJ-ing in Berlin the early 90’s. His career accelerated during the
super-club era of the late 1990’s and he became particularly closely associated with the Gatecrasher franchise. From the early 2000’s van Dyk began to pursue a more commercial musical direction, producing artist albums that have gained critical and mainstream international success. Van Dyk continues to be and in-demand headline DJ across the globe. Van Dyk has his own radio show "Paul van Dyk’s VONYC Sessions" and is associated with various political and charitable interests.
Paul van Dyk’s career is intimately linked with the rise and fall of the trance genre: his style became trance as the genre sparked into life and as his fame grew he became one of the most important figures in trance, shaping and popularizing the genre. Without him the sound of trance would not have been what it became. His original trance productions were arguably less influential than his remixes and DJ sets but he has proven himself skilled at crafting more mainstream productions.
Born in Eisenhuettenstadt, East Germany on December 16, 1971, Paul van Dyk grew up in communist East Berlin and was brought up by his mother, his father having left home when he was just three. He is married to Natascha van Dyk. Since the mid 2000’s van Dyk has become increasingly involved in politics and charitable work, including the US’s Rock the Vote in 2004 and his children’s charities in Mubai, India and in Berlin. The latter won him Berlin’s Medal of Honor (Landesverdienstorden) in 2006.