Micky Finn was there at the foundations. With musical roots stretching back into the proto-hardcore acid house days of the eighties, he’s having been among the very top tier of deejays and producers ever since. And the reason is simple, where some might stray into moody gangsta posturing or elitist conceptual art, his goal is simply to make ravers enjoy themselves

From early productions like “She’s Breaking Up” (produced under the name Bitin’ Back), through his seminal collaborations with Aphrodite, onto his 2010s work with contemporary innovators like Erb n Dub and Voltage, his tunes have been making people dance for nigh-on thirty years. Production standards and styles might have evolved, but the one constant has been that he knows how to make a beat connect with audiences. No wonder selectors as disparate as breaks legend Adam Freeland, Carl Cox, and, of course, pretty much every jungle and DnB deejay ever, have played his tunes at one time or another.

And that all-about-the-ravers ethos manifests in every aspect of his career. A crowd favourite resident from the earliest days of iconic promotions like AWOL and World Dance, his deejaying has taken him to a passport-disintegrating list of countries. A Micky Finn set, packed with one-away specials and the latest fire blended into a rolling rave-wrecking frenzy, is a roadblock affair wherever he touches down.

Even aside from his production and performance work, he’s got his fingers (or Finngers, if you prefer), in several other DnB-flavoured pies. His labels, Urban Takeover and Finn People, have, over the years, played host to the likes of Majistrate, Drumsound & Bassline Smith, and Camo & Krooked, among many other heavyweights. As well as knowing his way around A&R, he’s also one of the masterminds behind the monumental DnB holiday experience Sunbeatz.

As we say, Micky Finn was there at the foundations. But he’s also helped build the walls, put the roof on, and sort the electrics. Or, to abandon the metaphor, he’s simply one of the true icons of the rave scene and a British music institution.