''For Pete Tong, whose consummate involvement in all areas of dance music has made him a genuine household name in the UK, these are exciting times: every aspect of his considerably varied career is currently undergoing either consolidation, change, or creation anew.

As a DJ, not only is Tong is enjoying increasing international popularity, especially in the USA, plus Australia and the Far East as part of a new worldwide tour, he is also returning to Pure Pacha in Ibiza this summer for his residency. As a broadcaster who brought dance to the masses via his Essential Selection show at Radio One - he continues to have one of the most listened to shows at Radio 1 both live and on-line with millions of listeners weekly not just in the UK but worldwide too. As a producer, Tong is set to release some new material in various guises plus some film soundtracks in the not too distant future. As an innovator, Tong has just completed the world's very first collection of TV-style music shows, aired weekly direct to mobile phones. And as an icon, Tong has been the inspiration behind a new feature film "It's All Gone Pete Tong".

Such a range of high-profile activities seems a long way removed from Tong's beginnings as a mobile DJ in Kent during his teens. But for all his current fame and acclaim, you'd be hard put to find someone whose progression has been more organic. In fact, in many ways, Pete's story runs parallel to the growth of dance music in the UK.

When he was at school, hard rock ruled the roost, and Pete tried playing in bands, but after seeing a DJ playing actual records at a school disco and deciding "that looked like much more fun," he never looked back. "DJing just seemed to be my vocation." Initially, Pete followed that vocation to Soul Weekenders in otherwise quiet sea-side towns like Caister and Prestatyn, where he "was always the youngster" who ran with a crowd of old-school DJs known as the Soul Funk Mafia.

His involvement in that scene landed him a day job at Blues & Soul magazine where he soon became features editor and began making appearances on the pirates and BBC's Radio London. Out in clubland, meanwhile, he quickly learned a maxim that still holds true today: "the only way to do it is to run your own club, create your own scene." So Tong DJ'd a club in Baker Street called [Family] Function, and simultaneously booked bands for a weekend alternative night: the first one he hired was the then-unknown Culture Club.

An ability to explain what was then considered a fringe genre found him presenting a dance music segment on Radio 1's Peter Powell show. But noticing that daytime DJs had no control over the music they played, Tong eschewed national radio opportunities, launching a soul show on Kent's newly-launched Invicta station instead. By this time, his growing reputation for recognising new talent saw him leave Blues and Soul for an A&R position at London Records, a job he has held, in one manner or another, for almost twenty years.

In the mid-eighties, the old guard was swept away, as first the hip-hop and electro sounds from New York, and then house music from Chicago, techno from Detroit and the `Balearic Beat' in Ibiza, were embraced by a new set of young London promoters and DJs. Pete Tong and his friend Nicky Holloway DJ'd in Ibiza for the first time in 1986. The following year Holloway went with Oakenfold and Danny Rampling, and upon return to London, succeeded in emulating the Ibiza experience across clubland. The house generation was born.

Tong, in the thick of it all, was hired by Capital Radio to broadcast to the new clubbers, which helped give him the clout to start a `label within a label' at London. Ffrr Records was born in 1988: hitting the charts immediately with Salt n Pepa's 'Push It', Tong and ffrr became famous for conducting lightning raids on the latest underground hits and propelling them up the charts. "I've been lucky," says Tong. "I grew up at a time when the whole scene exploded, and I worked with a bunch of people for a long period of time who empowered me to be able to change things.''

The biggest change came in 1991, when Radio One recognised that it needed to cater for the new, and permanent, youth culture. Pete was hired away from Capital to host a brand new Friday evening show, the Essential Selection, which gave him one of the most influential jobs in the business - broadcasting to the Nation's record buying, club-going youth and, unlike his daytime predecessors, choosing the music too.

Tong's success as a broadcaster, clubland DJ and music industry taste-maker has been predicated on a precarious but successful balance between credibility - "I look for originality and records with a lot of spirit and soul," - and commerciality. "You can have good taste in your own world and be very obscure," he says of those DJs who ignore the crowd. This means that he's not afraid to drop the hits onto the decks. "People forget it's entertainment," Tong explains. "You've got these DJs coming on, and they'll inflict two or three hours of music on the audience, and sometimes it's torture because it's all unknown. It doesn't really work, and the music they're picking isn't really that good anyway. I wouldn't be doing this if I couldn't champion new music, but a mix is the key. And it's supposed to be fun.''

This readiness to entertain, tempered by a constant search for the next big thing, enabled Tong to thrive throughout the 1990s. Ffrr grew from a singles-based label to an album artist's breeding ground. The Essential Selection spun off a show called the Essential Mix, enabling DJs worldwide to showcase their mixing talents on national radio, and together these led to the Essential compilations, with Tong producing several best-sellers himself. In the mid-nineties, Radio 1 sought Tong's advice on revamping their roster, and with the arrival of Westwood, Judge Jules, Danny Rampling and co. to the national airwaves, the revolution was complete.

Success, though, can bring complacency, something Tong is adamant to avoid. "When you're on the radio for so long your audience stays the same age but you get older. The new people come in and think of you as a radio DJ and not a club DJ." With that in mind, Tong keeps his DJ schedule ever more packed as summer approaches, spending time on the road, searching out new music as he plays across the globe, broadcasting from select cities en route.

The Essential Mix series was launched in the States in 2000; Tong's debut American mix CD was released not long after and was backed by extensive touring. In March 2002, the Essential Selection was first broadcast from dance music's annual Winter Music Conference in Miami, which Tong says "...was a significant moment for Radio 1, as major as when we did the first broadcast from Ibiza in 95." Just a month later, Tong was back in the States as opening act for the Chemical Brothers, broadcasting from a tour stop in San Francisco before DJing at the highly respected Coachella Festival. At every American stop, he's found audiences fully familiar with his name, for which he partly credits the BBC's strong online presence. "America's a very online savvy market, particularly with dance music," he says. "So the awareness of me was much higher than I expected." With the imminent ability to stream the Essential Selection for a full week after broadcast at www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/, his worldwide audience will only continue to grow.

Pete is particularly excited about this coming summer's residency at Ibiza, playing Friday's from 11th June to 1st October at Pure Pacha, "the sexiest club on earth". Pure Pacha will be the first opening party on the island and it is sure to be something special. Guests during the season include Carl Cox, Danny Howells, Deep Dish, Jeff Mills, Laurent Garnier, Steve Lawler & Satoshie Tomiie to name just a few.

That the dance market has plateau'd after more than ten years solid growth should be seized upon as a good thing, Tong believes. "It sorts out the men from the boys. A few labels go down, a few shit records go down, but people still want to go out and have a good time. People love music, make no mistake about that, whether and how they buy it right now is one thing but people still want to party…it's our job to come up with new parties, new nights, new venues, new themes to keep the scene fresh and exciting."

Pete has also returned to the studio soon himself. Following his successes with the Twisted Beats compilation, his triple mix CD Tune In, Turn On and Crash Out, his acclaimed work assembling the music for the movies The Beach, Human Traffic and 24 Hour Party People; his increased involvement in soundtracks has encouraged him to produce some of his own music. In the past, making and producing music seemed like one thing too many, besides, "When I was running a label I would ask myself where I would find the time in my life to do it. Now, having left the record label, I have made a space where I can write and create if for no other reason than to please myself!"

In the meantime, the ever-active Pete still sees his vocation as he did when he started out, playing other people's records to get an audience dancing. "We need to constantly remember why people want to come to clubs - which is simply to have a great time and feel the music." With Tong behind the decks, there's little worry of failure on that score.''