Slipmatt
Slipmatt, born Matthew Nelson in Loughton, Essex in 1967, is an English DJ and producer who bought his first turntables in 1988 while working as an electrician and courier, initially playing hip-hop and house before founding the pirate radio station Raw FM in London's East End. He began his professional DJ career in 1989 playing the Raindance rave event, and that same year formed the breakbeat hardcore group SL2 with DJ Lime, a partnership that produced the 1992 UK hit On a Ragga Tip and placed Slipmatt at the center of the early rave scene's chart breakthroughs. He became a regular at the major Fantazia and Dreamscape rave brands, and by 1995 his DJ sets had shifted decisively toward the tougher hardcore sound that would come to define the UK's happy hardcore movement through the rest of the decade. Slipmatt has compiled and mixed numerous albums across his career and produced remixes for labels including Ministry of Sound, extending his reach beyond his own original productions. Now in his fourth decade as a DJ, Slipmatt remains a touring figure within the UK hardcore and happy hardcore scenes he helped shape from the rave explosion of the late 1980s onward.