Ruud van Rijen

Ruud was born in Baarle Hertog, Belgium (18-01-1964), but only lived there for just one month. His parents were Dutch and decided to move and take the whole family back to Holland, where he spent his whole school time. After hearing a 2 hour non-stop mix by Ben Liebrand, Ruud was instantly aware of the fact that he wanted to do this too! The first thing he did the next day was buying 2 turntables (without pitch-controls!!) and spent all his spare time on mixing. Self-confident as he was, he recorded his mixes on cassette-tapes and offered them to the local clubs. Ruud kept on developing his mixing-skills and by delivering newspapers, he was able to make small investments in equipment. Not long after this he participated in a mix-contest, for the first time, and amazed himself by winning! From here on he started working in a more professional way and started DJ-ing in several clubs, making mixes for the most popular Dutch radio programs. Because of all this work, he got well-known in the scene and he earned enough money to start a small recording studio. He was always working with records from other people, so he got very curious if he could produce one of his own. So he produced an instrumental track and added a few vocal pieces from other records (samples) to it and his first record was born in 1989: Drivin' Force - "Rock This World" He amazed himself and his friends and family again by pumping this dance-track into the top 10 of the National Dance-charts! Ruud was convinced that with originally recorded vocals (singing and rapping) his records would be perfect to cross-over to radio and finally to the national play- and sales charts. He created an act called Twenty 4 Seven, produced "I Can't Stand It", and before he realized it, this track became a world wide hit. Besides that, it was even used in the movie "Dying Young" with Julia Roberts. Later more Twenty 4 Seven tracks followed: Are You Dreaming, Slave To The Music, Is It Love, Take Me Away, Leave Them Alone, Oh Baby, Keep On Tryin' and many others. At the moment Ruud is living in Belgium again and he is still working as a DJ and is still making music.