Mirwais

Though recognized as a standout figure within France's electronic dance community, the producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Mirwais Ahmadzai entered the world in Switzerland, where his mother was Italian and his father Afghani. At the age of six he relocated with his family to Paris, quickly absorbing himself in music and taking up the guitar well before adolescence. In 1979 he launched the hybrid electronic/punk/disco project Taxi Girl, whose sound would later exert considerable influence on acts such as Daft Punk and Air. The group issued its first album, Seppuku, in 1981 and disbanded six years afterward amid internal friction and drug-related issues that ultimately cost the drummer his life. By 1989 Mirwais had formed the folk-pop group Juliette et les Independants alongside his girlfriend, yet a fresh encounter with drum'n'bass soon drew him back to electronic production. His 1999 track Disco Science gained traction on the French club scene and caught Madonna's ear; impressed, she enlisted him to helm most of her 2000 album Music. His own debut solo effort, Production, reached American listeners only weeks before that Madonna record appeared.