DJ Boris started his ascension to these ranks in 2004, when the native of St. Petersburg, Russia took up residence at New York super club Crobar. It was the culmination of years of workhorse gigging at almost every club across the Big Apple. But it was more than that too: It was a movement that has shown no signs of fading.

Boris (birth name: Boris Inzhin) started moonlighting as a DJ while taking classes at the Institute Of Audio Research in New York. With a metronomic mixing ability and a penchant for expansive, groove-based power-house music, the jock quickly found work both in DJ and production booths, playing at clubs like Exit, and Roxy, and remixing artists like Janet Jackson, Jewel and Gloria Estefan. In 2002, his mix of Pink’s “Get This Party Started” hit No.1 on the Billboard Hot Club Play chart.