Break-beat artist DJ Hyper lives up to his stage name: so far this year, he's released a compilation, Wired, toured the US with electro-rockers the Crystal Method and worked on his forthcoming artist album. And, if his beats matched his words-per-minute, he'd be a drum'n'bass DJ. A bit like DJ Hype.
'Hype wasn't too pleased about my name, the first time he found out,' says the 27-year old, whose real name is Guy Hatfield. 'But since then, he's said that at least I'm doing good things, so I suppose that's as good as I'm going to get.'
Hatfield's stage moniker comes from the name of a company he used to work for, Hyperactive. When he's asked to pick a stage name, he says: 'Genius of genius, it was the first thing that came into my head. It seems to have fared me well, so I won't do it down.'
After he learned his trade, through 'hanging out with the wrong crowd at free house parties in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire', Hatfield moved to London, discovered break beat and started his own promotion company, Waxworks.
'House music was getting a bit dull for me,' he says. 'Break beat has the speed of house and the funk of hip-hop, so that was me sold.'
Big-selling compilation albums for Y3K and Bedrock Breaks followed, and quickly cemented his reputation. 'All it is, is a confirmation of your taste,' Hatfield says. 'The Y3K compilation sold about 25,000. In terms of, say, a Metallica album, that's peanuts, but in breaks it's quite a lot.'