Fatboy Slim

Quentin Leo Cook was born on 31 July 1963 in the London Borough of Bromley, and the world would come to know him as Fatboy Slim. The English DJ, record producer and club fixture built his reputation on big beat, a sample-heavy style that paired pop song structures with processed rhythms and shouted slogans. Before the alias took over, Cook played bass in the Housemartins, the indie rock band whose 1986 cover of Caravan of Love hit number one in the UK. He never quite settled into pop stardom. When the Housemartins split, he moved to Brighton and threw himself into dance music. Beats International, his electronic group, scored a number-one single in 1990 with Dub Be Good to Me. He also played in Freak Power and released house records as Pizzaman and the Mighty Dub Katz. The Fatboy Slim name debuted in 1996 with Better Living Through Chemistry. Remixes for Wildchild and Cornershop followed, and then came You've Come a Long Way, Baby in 1998. That second album went platinum and gave him a trio of singles that still fill dance floors: The Rockafeller Skank, Praise You and Right Here, Right Now. The 2000 album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars produced Weapon of Choice, whose Spike Jonze video featuring Christopher Walken won six awards at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. A free 2002 concert on Brighton beach, Big Beach Boutique II, drew around 250,000 people. Palookaville arrived in 2004 to a cooler reception, as dance music's commercial tide pulled back and Cook leaned into a more obscure sound. Collaboration kept him busy. In 2009 he released an album as the Brighton Port Authority with guests including David Byrne, and the two worked together again on Here Lies Love (2010), a concept album about Imelda Marcos that became a stage musical in 2013 and earned Cook a Tony nomination for Best Original Score in 2024. These days he spends more time behind the decks than in the studio. His trophy shelf includes a Grammy, nine MTV Video Music Awards, two Brit Awards and an Ivor Novello. Guinness recognizes him for the most MTV Video Awards won by a DJ, the most MTV Video Awards for a single video, and the most UK number-one singles by one musician as a member of different acts. Offstage, he serves as an ambassador for Martlets Hospice in Brighton and supports community projects. His marriage to BBC presenter Zoe Ball kept the tabloids busy for years.[edit]