DJ David Guetta living the moment after 20-year wait for stardom

You remember that period, about six years ago, when house suddenly took over from R&B and hip hop as the dominant idiom of mainstream pop music? David Guetta did that. The 47-year-old French DJ, musician and producer is responsible more than any other person for one of the more seismic shifts in recent popular music history. If you're looking for a figurehead for the electronic dance music (EDM) takeover of the charts, he's your man.

Guetta performs at AsiaWorld-Arena on June 14, having played at the same venue two years ago. "I have an amazing memory of that night. It was a fantastic show, really crazy, and I'm so looking forward to coming back," he says

He still gets a thrill from performing. "Everything I do in my life is about that moment. The way I sleep, the way I eat, the way I think, the way I make music - it's all about what's going to happen when I drop that record."

Guetta's big break came in 2009, when three things happened within a month. The Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am, a fan of Guetta's minor 2007 hit Love is Gone, asked him to produce a song that subsequently became inescapable: I Gotta Feeling. At the same time, R&B superstar and former Destiny's Child member Kelly Rowland caught one of Guetta's DJ sets, and loved an instrumental track he played.

Rowland asked him about it when they subsequently met, and when she discovered it was his own music, asked if she could add some vocals to it. The result was the euphoric, soaring When Loves Takes Over, and suddenly Guetta was a star in his own right. Then, not long afterwards, urban music megastar Akon heard a performance of the song and suggested to Guetta that the two work together. The Frenchman booked a studio that night and the result, Sexy Bitch (aka Sexy Chick for radio play), outsold even its predecessor.