DJ Dimitri began his career on French radio in 1986, spinning discs on local Paris FM stations. Dimitri's show on Skyrock soon attracted a cult following, thousands of young listeners tuning in to listen to his innovative re-mixes of funk and house tracks (house had just exploded onto the Paris club scene with a vengeance). DJ Dimitri's speciality was to mix the trendiest dance beats with melodies by old French variété stars such as Julien Clerc, Etienne Daho and Richard Gotainer, thus creating his own French dance version of Easy-listening.

Working with cult French rap DJ Dee Nasty, Dimiri also broadened his musical horizons drawing inspiration from the work of American stars such as Afrikaa Bambaataa and The Sugarhill Gang.

In 1987 Dimitri left Skyrock to work with the FM dance station NRJ, where he ended up presenting a weekly show entirely devoted to house music. (He would continue to present the show right up until 1994).

But it was Dimitri's innovative remix work which would really catapult the young French DJ to fame. While working on NRJ, Dimitri would produce a brilliant remix for Björk, re-working the Icelandic dance star's original version of "Human Behaviour". Dimitri's remix went on to prove a huge international hit on the dance scene - indeed, it was even used by the top DJs on the New York club circuit, which was a sure sign of success for a French artist! Dimitri went on to produce over 100 remixes, reworking tracks by everyone from The Brand New Heavies, Cheb Khaled and New Order to Quincy Jones.

Having made his name as the leading specialist in ultra-chic, ultra-trendy lounge tracks, it was only natural that the French fashion industry should come knocking at his door. Dimitri found himself in great demand in Paris Fashion Week, masterminding catwalk soundtracks for top fashion houses such as Chanel, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Hermès and Yves Saint-Laurent.

Ironically, while Dimitri from Paris was making a major name for himself on the international dance scene, the French DJ remained a relative unkown at home. This would soon change, however, when Dimitri went into the studio to record his cult album "Sacrebleu" with Yellow Productions (a label which had already released two of Dimitri's tracks, "Band annonce" and "Un grand cœur", on the dance compilation album "La Yellow 357").

Released in July 96, "Sacrebleu" would go on to prove an enormous success, Dimitri's eclectic fusion of house beats and smooth French Easy-listening sounds scoring a major hit on dancefloors all the way from London to New York. "Sacré français", the high kitsch single release from "Sacrebleu", went on to rocket to the top of the international dance charts. It appeared that Dimitri's "French touch" had become a major musical export - indeed, 90% of the French DJ's album sales were accounted for in England, Japan and the United States.

Dimitri upped the glam stakes for his next album, dreaming up sounds that would suit a mega-party organised in the legendary villa of Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner. The result, "A Night at the Playboy Mansion," featured a catchy series of mixes and remixes of soul, disco and hip hop hits from the 70s and 80s, which received a stamp of approval from the notorious Playboy founder himself. "Disco Forever" (released in 2000) and "After the Playboy Mansion" (in 2002) mined the same rich musical vein. All three instalments in the Playboy series proved to be big commercial hits. Indeed, international sales almost topped the 500,000 mark.

However, Dimitri’s next album, "Cruising Attitude," took a while to find a distributor – and a public! "Cruising Attitude" was originally released in 2003 in Japan (where Dimitri already enjoyed widespread popularity and went on to compose the theme music to cult Japanese cartoon series Moon Face in 2004). But "Cruising Attitude" was not released in France until 2004. The Peter Sellers-style humour that infused "Sacrebleu" was missing this time round, however. And lately Dimitri has concentrated on consolidating his reputation as a DJ, thanks to the triple CD mix "In The House" (released on UK label Defected) and his production work. Most recently, he was called in to co-produce the upcoming album by Los Amigos Invisibles (featuring reworkings of old Venezuelan disco-funk classics from the 70s and 80s).

With his innovative dance remixes and his amusing fusion of house and Easy listening à la française, Dimitri has proved that French DJs can now rival the top names from London and New York. This multi-talented young DJ has also shown that a little "French touch" and a dash of musical exoticism can go a mighty long way abroad !

July 2004