With an increasingly diverse list of countries now playing host to massive club events and dance music festivals, it was simply a matter of time before someone like Argentinean Hernan Cattaneo made the jump from local hero to international DJ.

Growing up in Buenos Aires, Cattaneo first became interested in dance music following a trip to New York City’s Vinylmania, where he snatched up an armload of releases by such Chicago house luminaries as Frankie Knuckles, Derrick May and Inner City. From there, Cattaneo began scoring DJ gigs in his hometown of Buenos Aires and later throughout South America. Before long, the burgeoning dance music scene in South America began to garner worldwide exposure. Instantly, Cattaneo found himself rubbing shoulders with the likes of Sasha, John Digweed, Danny Tenaglia, Carl Cox, Darren Emerson and Paul Oakenfold.

After cementing his reputation with the world’s dance music elite, Cattaneo embarked on a number of successful world tours (including a European stint with Oakenfold), got picked by Cream to be their South American resident, appeared on a number of compliations and became a fixture on the worldwide DJ circuit. In both 2004 and 2005, Cattaneo landed in the top ten of DJ Mag’s list of the top 100 DJs—a long way from his humble beginnings in Argentina.

Currently, Cattaneo is keeping himself busy playing gigs around the world and dropping new music. A recent single, “Warsaw” (a collaboration with John Tonks), was released on John Digweed’s label, Bedrock Breaks, to worldwide acclaim.