Gilles Peterson (born 28 September c.1964 in Caen, France), is a DJ, record collector and record label owner from London, UK. Through his labels Acid Jazz, Talkin' Loud, and latterly Brownswood Recordings, he has been associated with the careers of well-known artists of the 1990s such as Erykah Badu and Tony Rich plus Jamiroquai. He is also well known as a radio DJ.
After starting out on pirate radio, and having shows on various legal London-based radio stations, most noticeably including Kiss FM dance music station, he was recruited to the BBC's youth-oriented Radio 1 in 1998. Peterson is known for his eclectic musical selections, and has even been occasionally mentioned as the new John Peel[citation needed]. However whilst the late John Peel had an "anything goes" range of tastes displayed on his show, Peterson's focus has always been Jazz music, generally Modern Jazz, with a strong emphasis on its use in a club environment, mixed with associated music styles.
Widely acclaimed as a musical tastemaker, he spreads his influence on music listeners around the world mostly through his Worldwide radio show on BBC Radio 1 which is also broadcast live on the Radio 1 website and available for audio streaming online for seven days from broadcast. He also does another version of the show which gets syndicated to radio stations all over the world, such as FM4 in Austria and Radio Helsinki in Finland, and does a British Airways in-flight entertainment show too. Parallel to this, his frequent DJing gigs around the world also have cemented a worldwide following—perhaps rather apt, given the name of his radio show is Worldwide.
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