Benny Benassi

Marco Benassi grew up between Milan and Reggio Emilia, and began DJing with his cousin Alessandro "Alle" Benassi in the late 1980s. Through the mid-1990s the pair worked out of producer Larry Pignagnoli's Off Limits studio, writing and producing tracks for acts such as Whigfield, J.K. and Ally & Jo, years before either of them had a hit under his own name.

The two later worked together as Benassi Bros, a vocal-led house project built around singers Paul French and Violeta Claudia, known collectively as the Biz. It ran alongside Benny's solo records and produced singles including "Illusion" and "Every Single Day", drawn from the albums "Pumphonia" and "…Phobia".

Benassi's own breakthrough came under the name KMC, with "I Feel So Fine" in 2001, sung by Dhany, which topped the UK club chart. His solo material leaned harder and dirtier, built on distorted, filter-swept bass and blunt repeated vocal hooks: "Satisfaction" reached number two on the UK Singles Chart in 2002 after its video was replaced with one showing models using power tools.

His debut solo album, "Hypnotica", followed in 2003 and won the European Border Breakers Award, becoming one of the best-selling Italian albums outside Italy. "Able to Love" came from the same period, and in 2005 Benassi founded the record label Pump-Kin Music to support new and unsigned producers.

Benassi later worked with pop and rap vocalists, including Chris Brown on "Beautiful People" and Gary Go on "Cinema", and won a Grammy for his remix of Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise". His DJ sets still sit in the electro-house register his early records mapped out.