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DJ Mag Top100 DJs
23
Paul Oakenfold
9

Who out of the DJmag Top 100 DJs can say that they played to 1.3 million people this year? While on tour with Madonna. After producing her latest single. Well, none, other than Paul Oakenfold, that is. "In Finland, there were 94,000 people," he says, genuinely humbled and perhaps a little baffled. "Look, I know they ain't come to see me. I know that I'm fortunate, and that I've been given an opportunity. Lots of artists would have loved to support her." Equally, he admits it was unexpected when the Queen of Pop approached him to produce her single 'Celebration', the only new track on her recent double-disc greatest hits album. "To be honest, I was surprised," he says. "She'd just worked with Timbaland and Pharrell and Justin Timberlake, and I didn't think she wanted to go in my direction. But she listened to some of the ideas, and we wrote a bunch of songs.'" And if that wasn't A-list enough, Oakenfold's now working on a Michael Jackson track, for a forthcoming tribute album, has been scoring films for Jerry Bruckheimer, has a Las Vegas residency which pulls in 3000 people every week and an artist album in the pipeline, featuring collaborations with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cee-Lo, OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder and Perfecto signing Infected Mushroom.