Armand Van Helden

You know Armand Van Helden, right? The self-styled ‘bad boy’ of house, the man with a mountain-size ego, the six-pack framed poser with his joke of an Ali G-like pencil beard, the money-hunger remixer who famously cleared the dancefloor at Space, who really wants to make hip-hop, but can’t. You know Armand Van Helden, right? The same Armand Van Helden that doesn’t own a flat, or a car, who chooses to walk around his adopted home of New York, rather than chug about in a chrome-plated SUV. The homeboy who was championing the raw, energetic, fun sound of hip-house long before it became a fashion accessory. The straight-talking, no-nonsense trainspotter who still spends hours thumbing through thrift stores in search of tunes to sample, the music fan that owns thousands