Electric Zoo Festival: 10 Must-See EDM Artists

A former DJing prodigy (he won the 1997 Technics/DMC World championship at age 15), A-Trak is now an in-demand performer at festivals around the world. He’s collaborated with everyone from Kanye West to Travis Barker, so you know he’ll bring a unique sound to Electric Zoo.

The superstar French DJ is one of the biggest names in dance music right now. While his sound is definitely straight dance, he’s worked with some of the biggest names in American hip hop, including Nicki Minaj, Lil’ Wayne, Chris Brown and Usher. His live shows are accompanied by an elaborate light show and he often claps to crowd in encouragement, not that the thousands of dancing fans need any more motivation.

Producing a brand of electronic music that brings together funk, trip hop and dubstep, Colorado's Pretty Lights is one of the more inventive figures in the EDM scene today. Case in point? For the RE:GENERATION project, Pretty Lights convincingly produced an electronic-country crossover tune with LeAnn Rimes. That's a feat.

Italian house DJ/Robert Downey Jr. lookalike Benny Benassi became clubland royalty in 2003 with his debut single "Satisfaction," which was subsequently sampled by Ludacris and Flo Rida. Since then, the DJ has worked with everyone from Chris Brown to Madonna to T-Pain.

Voted one of the world's Top 10 DJs every year since 1997 by 'DJMag,' Welsh producer/DJ Sasha might be the must-see set of Electic Zoo 2012. Sasha will be focusing on music from his ‘Involver’ trilogy (the third is due later this year), which means radically reworked versions of tracks by other artists. This is music created to make you move, not made for the radio.

The California DJ's name has become synonymous with the exploding EDM movement. He's collaborated with approximately a billion musicians and fellow DJs, and sometimes he goes crowd canoeing at his live shows. (That's basically exactly what it sounds like.)

Any discussion of trance music begins and ends with Dutchman Tiësto, the pioneering DJ/producer who, under various guises, set the blueprint for trance and house. His name is a perennial Top 5 entry on DJ Mag's prestigious Top 100 list and a decade after his debut, Tijs Michiel Verwest remains the king.

If you're going to catch your first Skrillex set, drink a bunch of coffee, ignore the haircut and let yourself succumb to his electric live show. And if you somehow haven't heard of Skrillex by now, well, he doesn't really care. He's the second highest-paid DJ on Forbes' Electronic Cash Kings list—he earned $15 million over the last 12 months. He has to be doing something right.

Forward-thinking yet firmly grounded in the work of Daft Punk, Berlin-based DJ Alex Ridha brings the titular 'noize' with his electro-inflected techno. Expect the cheekily-titled "XTC" single and hopefully a few other teases of his upcoming 'Out of the Black' album when he hits Electric Zoo.

Philadelphia-based Diplo is something of a musical renaissance man. He DJs at clubs around the world, produces (everyone from MIA to Beyonce to Riff Raff), owns a record label (Mad Decent) and serves as a sort of curator for underrepresented international music, like Jamaican dancehall and the Bounce scene in New Orleans. His live show shouldn’t be missed.