DJ Shadow

DJ Shadow, born Joshua Paul Davis on June 29, 1972, grew up in Davis, California, the town he later took as his stage name. He began experimenting with a four-track recorder while still in high school and worked as a DJ on the University of California, Davis campus station KDVS, absorbing funk, jazz and rock records alongside hip-hop.

His early singles "In/Flux" and "Lost and Found (S.F.L.)" mixed hip-hop with ambient, soul and rock instincts drawn from crate-digging, and a Mixmag writer's description of "In/Flux" helped popularize the term trip hop. Davis has cited Kurtis Mantronik, Steinski and Prince Paul as key influences on his sample-based approach.

In 1993 he helped start the Solesides label with Blackalicious and Lyrics Born, a Bay Area outlet that later became Quannum Projects. The same year, Mo' Wax founder James Lavelle signed him in London, an association that led to Davis contributing scratches to a Massive Attack remix.

Endtroducing….., released in 1996, was built using only an Akai MPC60 sampler, a pair of turntables and a borrowed Pro Tools rig. Guinness later listed it as the first completely sampled album, and Time magazine named it among its all-time 100 best albums.

Between 1996 and 1999, Davis also worked as part of the group Unkle, producing their debut album Psyence Fiction, which included a guest vocal from Thom Yorke. He kept issuing solo records afterward, and his all-vinyl sets with Cut Chemist, built from the pair's shared record collections, run alongside heavy visuals and reworked versions of his catalogue in his live show.