Biography

Pierre David Guetta (French pronunciation: ​; born 7 November 1967) is a French DJ, record producer, remixer, and songwriter. He co-founded Gum Productions with Lisa Dodgson and released his first album, Just a Little More Love, in 2002. Later, he released Guetta Blaster (2004) and Pop Life (2007).

Guetta achieved mainstream success with his 2009 album One Love which included the hit singles "When Love Takes Over", "Gettin' Over You", "Sexy Bitch", and "Memories", the first three of which reached number one in the United Kingdom. The 2011 follow-up album, Nothing but the Beat, continued this success, containing the hit singles "Where Them Girls At", "Little Bad Girl", "Without You", "Titanium", and "Turn Me On". He is among the first DJs to get into the EDM scene and is known as the "Grandfather of EDM".

Guetta has sold over nine million albums and 30 million singles worldwide. In 2011 Guetta was voted as the number one DJ in the 'DJ Mag Top 100 DJs' fan poll.

In 2013, Billboard crowned "When Love Takes Over" as the number one dance-pop collaboration of all time.

Life and career

Early life

Pierre David Guetta was born in Paris, France in 1967, to a Moroccan Jewish father and a Belgian mother.

1984–2000: Early work

Guetta began to DJ at the Broad Club in Paris. He first played popular songs, and he discovered house music when he heard a Farley "Jackmaster" Funk track on French radio in 1987. The next year, he began hosting his own club nights. In 1990, he released "Nation Rap", a hip-hop collaboration with French rapper Sidney Duteil.

In the mid-1990s Guetta played in clubs including Le Centrale, the Rex, Le Boy, and Folies Pigalle. Released in 1994Guetta's second single, a collaboration with American house vocalist Robert Owens titled "Up & Away", was a minor club hit. In 1994, Guetta became the manager of Le Palace nightclub and he continued to organise parties there and in other clubs, such as the "Scream" parties in Les Bains Douches.

2001–06: Just a Little More Love and Guetta Blaster

In 2001, Guetta along with Joachim Garraud founded Gum Productions, and in the same year Guetta's first hit single, "Just A Little More Love", featuring American singer Chris Willis was released. Willis was vacationing in France when he met Guetta. Guetta's debut album Just A Little More Love was released in 2002 on Virgin Records and sold over 300,000 copies. The follow-up singles, ("Love Don't Let Me Go", "People Come People Go" and "Give Me Something"), were released in 2002. Guetta released a compilation, F*ck Me I'm Famous, in 2003, named after his party in Ibiza. It included "Just for One Day (Heroes)", a remix of David Bowie's song "Heroes". Later in his career, Guetta continued recording compilations under that title.

Guetta's second album, Guetta Blaster, was released in 2004. It released four singles: "Money" and "Stay" featuring Chris Willis and "The World Is Mine" and "In Love With Myself" featuring JD Davis. In 2006 the Just a Little More Love single "Love Don't Let Me Go" was re-released as a mash-up with the Tocadisco remix of "Walking Away" by The Egg. The mash-up single entitled "Love Don't Let Me Go (Walking Away)" was charted higher than the original release of the song.

2007–09: Pop Life

In 2007, Guetta's third album Pop Life was released. The album was successful in the UK and Ireland as well as in mainland Europe. According to EMI in 2010, the album has sold a total of 530,000 copies worldwide. The lead single "Love Is Gone" reached Number 1 on the American Dance Chart and charted on the Billboard Hot 100.

"Delirious" featured the vocals of Tara McDonald who also co wrote the record. The song was released as the album's fourth single on 31 January 2008. The song charted #27 Austrian singles chart, #17 Belgian (Flanders) chart, #2 Belgian (Wallonia) singles chart. #12 Dutch singles chart, #16 French singles chart, #16 Swiss singles chart, #36 Hungary singles chart, #29 Romanian singles chart, #51 Swedish singles chart. The remixes of the song, including mixes by Fred Rister, Marc Mysterio, Laidback Luke, and Arno Cost and Norman Doray were released. A video clip for the song was filmed by Denys Thibaut in Montreal, featuring Guetta and Tara McDonald, picturing an executive assistant throwing paint all over her boss's office. McDonald also sang and co wrote "You're Not Alone" from this album.

He has played in many countries around the world to promote the album. He played in Mauritius in January 2008, accompanied by French rapper JoeyStarr. In the same year, he and his wife Cathy also planned a new event which took place in the Stade de France on 5 July 2008. The event was called "UNIGHTED", he performed with Tiësto, Carl Cox, Joachim Garraud and Martin Solveig in front of a crowd of 40,000.

In 2009, he was placed third in the "Top 100 DJs" poll by DJ Magazine, and was elected "Best House DJ" by DJ Awards in 2008. Since April 2009, Guetta had his own radio show on the internet radio station RauteMusik on Saturday evening. The show was afterwards moved into Radio 538, being aired every Friday evening after Tiësto's Club Life.

2009–10: One Love and international breakthrough

Guetta's fourth studio album, One Love, was released in August 2009. Its first single "When Love Takes Over", which featured Kelly Rowland, peaked at #1 on the UK Singles Chart and topped many other countries worldwide, selling over 5,5 million copies worldwide. His second single from the album, "Sexy Bitch" featuring Akon, became his second #1 in the UK. "One Love" featuring Estelle, "Memories" featuring Kid Cudi and "Gettin' Over You" featuring Chris Willis, Fergie and LMFAO followed. As of May 2011 the album had sold three million copies worldwide. Guetta's fourth studio album One Love was nominated as "Best Electronic/Dance Album" at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. His song "When Love Takes Over" featuring American R&B singer Kelly Rowland received two nominations; Best Dance Recording and Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical, and won the latter. After conflicts over whether or not an album re-issue should go ahead, One More Love was released on 29 November 2010. The first single, titled "Who's That Chick?" featuring Rihanna was released a few weeks prior.

On 16 June 2009, The Black Eyed Peas released the Guetta-produced "I Gotta Feeling" as their second single from their fifth studio album, The E.N.D.. It became a worldwide hit topping the charts in seventeen countries. It became the most downloaded song of all-time in the United States with almost 7.5 million downloads and in the United Kingdom selling more than 1 million copies. He was nominated twice for his work with The Black Eyed Peas at the 52nd Grammy Awards; in the category Record of the Year for "I Gotta Feeling" and Album of the Year for their album The E.N.D.. In 2010, Guetta co-wrote and produced Kelly Rowland's "Commander" from her third album Here I Am. It peaked at number one on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Songs chart in the United States, and reached top ten positions in Belgium and the United Kingdom. Guetta has also co-produced "Forever and a Day", which was Kelly's next UK single from that album. Guetta also produced the singles "Acapella" and "Scream" for American singer-songwriter Kelis's fifth studio album, Flesh Tone, released on 14 May 2010. "Acapella" was released as the lead single on 23 February 2010 and topped the dance charts in the United Kingdom and United States. On 28 June 2010 American rapper Flo Rida released the single "Club Can't Handle Me" featuring Guetta. The song is included on the soundtrack album to the American 3D dance film Step Up 3D and Flo Rida's third studio album, Only One Flo (Part 1).

2011–12: Nothing but the Beat and Jack Back Records

Guetta's fifth studio album, Nothing but the Beat was released on 26 August 2011. It was released as a double-disc album; one disc being vocal and the other being electronic. Guetta was inspired by rock bands such as Kings of Leon and Coldplay to add rock influences to his dance productions. "Where Them Girls At" featuring Flo Rida and Nicki Minaj, the first single off the album, was released worldwide on 2 May 2011. "Little Bad Girl", with Taio Cruz and Ludacris, was released as the second single on 28 June 2011. The third single, "Without You" with Usher, was released on 27 September 2011. Guetta has also released four promotional singles for Nothing But the Beat which were "Titanium" with Sia, "Lunar" with Afrojack, "Night of Your Life" with Jennifer Hudson, and "The Alphabeat". The album also features the hit singles "Sweat" with Snoop Dogg and "Turn Me On" with Nicki Minaj.

Guetta teamed up with Afrojack and Tara McDonald again to release "Pandemonium" on his FMIF Ibiza Mix 2011 compilation through EMI records. 

Guetta also performed alongside Nicky Romero and Nervo at London's Alexandra Palace on 1 June 2012.

A re-release of Nothing but the Beat, titled Nothing but the Beat 2.0, was released on 7 September 2012. The first single from the album, "She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)", which saw Guetta collaborate with Sia yet again, was released in support of the album. The next single off Nothing But The Beat 2.0 has been confirmed by Guetta as "Just One Last Time" which features vocals from Swedish duo Taped Rai. In 2012, Guetta also made an album named Nothing But The Beat: Ultimate, which combined the two albums Nothing But The Beat and Nothing But The Beat 2.0 together. Summer 2012 Guetta played in Finland in Weekend Festival and he will be festival's headliner also for year 2013. The third single from Nothing but the Beat 2.0 is "Play Hard"

Nothing But the Beat is a feature-length biographical documentary about Guetta's rise to fame, featuring many of his collaborators, including Kelly Rowland, will.i.am and Snoop Dogg. It was financed by the energy drink, burn, with whom Guetta became a brand ambassador from 2011. Together with burn, Guetta also provided support and mentoring for the burn-sponsored "burn studios residency" program for up-and-coming DJs.

Guetta also wrote, produced, and featured on Rihanna's seventh studio album, Unapologetic, and acts as the support act for the European leg of her ongoing Diamonds World Tour.

In 2012, Guetta created a new record label known as Jack Back Records, where he intends to focus only on electronic music releases (compared to the dance pop productions he's most known for). The label is named after a project Guetta started alongside Nicky Romero when they remixed the song "Wild Ones". The premiere release of the new label was "Metropolis", another one of his collaboration with Romero, which also became a track from Nothing but the Beat 2.0. The label also included releases from the likes of Daddy's Groove and other collaborators, as well as a two-track EP from production duo Spencer & Hill. All of the label's releases can be found on Beatport.

2013: Lovers on the Sun EP

While on tour with Rihanna, he debuted his new track at Twickenham Stadium on 15 June 2013. Guetta stated "Twickenham, I hope you like this new track, it's brand new and you're the first people in the world to hear it." The single, called "Ain't a Party", was released on 8 July 2013. It is a collaboration between GLOWINTHEDARK and Harrison. Guetta released the artwork for his new single on his Instagram profile on 19 June 2013.

In September, Guetta unveiled the music video for new track "One Voice" featuring indie singer Mikky Ekko. It was released on 4 November as part of the UN's humanitarian campaign called The World Needs More.

Guetta co-wrote and produced the song "Fashion!" on Lady Gaga's third studio album Artpop. He also had songwriting and production contributions to Britney Spears' eighth studio album Britney Jean, on multiple tracks and instrumentation imitations.

On 20 January 2014, Guetta released "Shot Me Down" featuring American singer Skylar Grey. It is an adaption of the Cher song "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)". The song was co-produced by Giorgio Tuinfort.

In February, Guetta released a remix of Avicii's track "Addicted to You" on Beatport. Later that month, record label Cherrytree hinted through a message on Twitter that English singer-songwriter Natalia Kills was in a studio in Stockholm, Sweden, along with Guetta and Giorgio Tuinfort to record a new song. The trio was later joined by DJ Afrojack, and Avicii. On 17 March 2014, he released "Bad", a collaboration with Showtek and Vassy on Jack Back Records, and released his remix of Afrojack's single "Ten Feet Tall" on 15 April.

Guetta released "Blast Off", with Kaz James on 14 June. It appeared on the four-track EP titled Lovers on the Sun he released later that month. The EP contains "Blast Off", "Shot Me Down" with Skylar Grey, "Bad" , and "Lovers on the Sun" with Sam Martin.

2014–present: Listen

His sixth studio album, Listen, was released worldwide on 21 November 2014 through Big Beat Records and Atlantic Records. Guetta co-wrote the title track "Listen" with Austin Bis. "Dangerous" featuring Sam Martin was released as the third single from the album on 5 October 2014.

On 30 April 2015, Guetta's song "What I Did for Love" was released as a special version featuring vocals from Japanese singer Namie Amuro for her studio album Genic.

In March 2015, Guetta released the fourth single from Listen, entitled "Hey Mama". It features the vocals of Nicki Minaj and Bebe Rexha, and also features Afrojack. The single proved successful, reaching the top ten in the UK and in the US. On June 22, 2015, Guetta became the third artist to reach 2 billion streams on Spotify and released a remix of "Hey Mama" by Boaz van de Beatz to celebrate the occasion.

In December 2015, UEFA announced that Guetta would be the music ambassador for UEFA Euro 2016, with the official song for the tournament being "This One's for You". UEFA also announced that the song would be integrated throughout the tournament, including during the opening and closing sequences for every television match broadcast, and will also be performed by Guetta at the opening and closing ceremonies. "This One's for You" was released on 13 May 2016.

Also in late 2015, Guetta re-released Listen as Listen Again to promote the songs and then-recent singles "Sun Goes Down", "Pelican", "The Death of EDM", "Clap Your Hands" and a version of "Bang My Head" featuring Fetty Wap alongside Sia. On 16 May 2016, Guetta released the extended mix of "Pelican" on his label Jack Back Records.

On 15 April 2016, Guetta released a single with Disciples, titled "No Worries".

On 30 September 2016, Guetta released a new single with Cedric Gervais and Chris Willis named "Would I Lie to You" on his label Jack Back Records. The song interpolates the vocals/lyrics of the 1992 Charles & Eddie hit "Would I Lie to You?". On 28 April 2017, his collaboration with Dutch DJ Afrojack, "Another Life" was released, featuring American singer-songwriter Ester Dean. Following it his next single "Light My Body Up" featuring rappers Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj was released on the same platform on May 5. On 9 June 2017, Guetta's single "2U" featuring Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber was released.