List of Famous Disc Jockeys

Reference
40.3K views1.5k items

List of famous disc jockeys, with photos, bios, and other information when available. Who are the top disc jockeys in the world? This includes the most prominent disc jockeys, living and dead, both in America and abroad. This list of notable disc jockeys is ordered by their level of prominence, and can be sorted for various bits of information, such as where these historic disc jockeys were born and what their nationality is. The people on this list are from different countries, but what they all have in common is that they're all renowned disc jockeys.

This list contains people like Jimmy Savile and David Guetta.

From reputable, prominent, and well known disc jockeys to the lesser known disc jockeys of today, these are some of the best professionals in the disc jockey field. If you want to answer the questions, "Who are the most famous disc jockeys ever?" and "What are the names of famous disc jockeys?" then you're in the right place. 
Ranked by
  • Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an American media personality, businesswoman, socialite, model, singer, actress, fashion designer, and DJ. Hilton is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, the founder of Hilton Hotels. Born in New York City and raised there and in Beverly Hills, California, she began her modeling career as a teenager when she signed with New York-based modeling development agency Trump Model Management. Her late-night persona made her a fixture of tabloid journalism, and Hilton was proclaimed "New York's leading It Girl" in 2001. In 2003, a leaked 2001 sex tape with her then-boyfriend Rick Salomon, later released as 1 Night in Paris, catapulted her into global fame, and the reality television series The Simple Life, in which she starred with her socialite counterpart Nicole Richie, started its five-year run with 13 million viewers, on FOX. In 2004, Hilton released her book Confessions of an Heiress, which became a New York Times Best Seller, in 2005, she appeared in the horror film House of Wax, and in 2006, her self-titled album, Paris, was released worldwide; it reached number six on the Billboard 200, with her debut single, "Stars Are Blind", quickly becoming a global hit. Hilton returned to reality television in 2008 with the Paris Hilton's My New BFF franchise, in 2011 with The World According to Paris, and again in 2018 with Hollywood Love Story. Her big-screen credits include the films Raising Helen (2004), Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), and Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring (2013) as well as the documentaries Paris, Not France (2008), Teenage Paparazzo (2010) and The American Meme (2018). In 2012, Hilton made her debut as a DJ at Brazil's Pop Music Festival, to much public backlash. Between 2013 and 2017, she held the "Paris Hilton: Foam & Diamonds" residence at the Amnesia nightclub in Ibiza, and according to Time, established herself as the highest-paid female DJ in 2014.Credited with influencing the revival of the famous for being famous phenomenon during the early and mid 2000s, Hilton exemplifies the "celebutante": a celebrity not through talent or work, but through inherited wealth and lifestyle. She has parlayed her media fame into perfumes and various lines with her endorsement; her perfume brand alone have brought in over US$3 billion in revenue. In addition to a Paris Hilton Beach Club Resort in Manila, the Philippines, there are currently 50 Paris Hilton stores worldwide and 19 product lines, such as handbags, watches, footwear, hair and skin care. Hilton earns over US$10 million a year from business ventures, and as of 2017, she was paid about US$300,000 for appearances in clubs and events.
  • Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She is known for her unconventionality, provocative work and visual experimentation. Gaga began performing as a teenager, singing at open mic nights and acting in school plays. She studied at Collaborative Arts Project 21, through New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, before dropping out to pursue a music career. When Def Jam Recordings canceled her contract, she worked as a songwriter for Sony/ATV Music Publishing, where Akon helped her sign a joint deal with Interscope Records and his own label KonLive Distribution in 2007. She rose to prominence the following year with her debut album, the electropop record The Fame, and its chart-topping singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". A follow-up EP, The Fame Monster (2009), featuring the singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and "Alejandro", was also successful. Gaga's second full-length album, Born This Way (2011), explored electronic rock and techno-pop. It peaked atop the US Billboard 200 and sold more than one million copies in the country in its first week. Its title track became the fastest selling song on the iTunes Store with over a million downloads in less than a week. Gaga experimented with EDM on her third studio album, Artpop (2013), which reached number one in the US and included the single "Applause". Her collaborative jazz album with Tony Bennett, Cheek to Cheek (2014), and her soft rock-influenced fifth studio album, Joanne (2016), also topped the US charts. During this period, Gaga ventured into acting, playing leading roles in the miniseries American Horror Story: Hotel (2015–2016), for which she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, and the critically acclaimed musical drama A Star Is Born (2018). She also contributed to the latter's soundtrack, which received the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music and made her the only woman to achieve five US number one albums in the 2010s. Its lead single, "Shallow", earned Gaga the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Having sold 27 million albums and 146 million singles as of January 2016, Gaga is one of the world's best-selling music artists. Her achievements include several Guinness world records, nine Grammy Awards, and awards from the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. She has been declared Billboard's Artist of the Year and Woman of the Year, and included among Forbes's power and earnings rankings. She was ranked number four on VH1's Greatest Women in Music in 2012 and second on Time's 2011 readers' poll of the most influential people of the past ten years. She is known for her philanthropy and social activism, including her work related to LGBT rights, and for her nonprofit organization, the Born This Way Foundation, which focuses on empowering youth and preventing bullying.
  • Howard Allan Stern is an American radio and television personality, producer, author, actor, and photographer. He is best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. Stern has been exclusive to Sirius XM Radio since 2006. Stern wished to pursue a radio career since the age of five. While at Boston University, he worked at the campus station WTBU before a brief stint at WNTN in Newton, Massachusetts. He developed his on-air personality when he landed positions at WRNW in Briarcliff Manor, WCCC in Hartford, Connecticut, and WWWW in Detroit, Michigan. In 1981, he paired with his current newscaster and co-host Robin Quivers at WWDC in Washington, D.C., before a stint at WNBC in New York City until his firing in 1985. In 1985, Stern moved to WXRK in New York City and became one of the most popular radio personalities in America. He became the first to have the number one morning radio show in New York and Los Angeles simultaneously and won numerous awards, including winning Billboard’s Nationally Syndicated Air Personality of the Year award eight times.
  • Caryn Elaine Johnson (born November 13, 1955), known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg (), is an American actor, comedian, author, and television personality. She has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards and is one of the few entertainers to have won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award (EGOT). She is the second black woman to win an Academy Award for acting.Goldberg's breakthrough came in 1985 for her role as Celie, a mistreated woman in the Deep South, in Steven Spielberg's period drama film The Color Purple, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her first Golden Globe Award. For her performance in the romantic fantasy film Ghost (1990) as Oda Mae Brown, an eccentric psychic, Goldberg won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a second Golden Globe, her first for Best Supporting Actress. In 1992, Goldberg starred in the comedy Sister Act, earning a third Golden Globe nomination, her first for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. She reprised the role in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), making her the highest-paid actress at the time. Her other film roles include Made in America (1993), Corrina, Corrina (1994), The Lion King (1994), The Little Rascals (1994), Boys on the Side (1995), Theodore Rex (1995), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), Girl, Interrupted (1999), For Colored Girls (2010), Toy Story 3 (2010), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Nobody's Fool (2018) and Furlough (2018). In television, Goldberg is known for her role as Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation. She has been the moderator of the talk show The View since 2007.
  • Bob Dylan (born May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, poet, and visual artist who has been a major figure in popular culture for more than fifty years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement. His lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defied pop-music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture. Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which mainly comprised traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the following year. The album featured "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall." For many of these songs, he adapted the tunes and phraseology of older folk songs. He went on to release the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan encountered controversy when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966). The six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965) radically expanded what a pop song could convey. In July 1966, Dylan withdrew from touring after being injured in a motorcycle accident. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had previously backed him on tour. These recordings were released as the collaborative album The Basement Tapes in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes in John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969), and New Morning (1970). In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks, which many saw as a return to form. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s. The major works of his later career include Time Out of Mind (1997), "Love and Theft" (2001), Modern Times (2006) and Tempest (2012). His most recent recordings have comprised versions of traditional American standards, especially songs recorded by Frank Sinatra. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. He has sold more than 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has also received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
  • Ricky Dene Gervais (born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, director and writer best known for co-creating, co-writing and acting in the British television mockumentary sitcom The Office (2001–2003). He has won seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and the Rose d'Or twice (2006 and 2019), and has been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2007, he was placed at No. 11 on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups, and at No. 3 in their 2010 list. In 2010, he was included in the Time 100 list of World's Most Influential People.