Dutch DJ Martin Garrix has again been voted the world’s number one DJ by the influential British magazine DJ Mag and half of the top 10 are from the Netherlands.

The 26-year-old topped the list of 100 for the fourth time, after previous wins in 2016, 2017 and, 2018, knocking his friend and mentor David Guetta out of the first-place spot he’s held for the past two years.

‘That’s very surreal, for me, to be in the list in general — I’m in the list with all the people I look up to,’ Garrix (whose real name is Martijn Garritsen) told DJ Mag. ‘I started making music because of Tiësto, and I’m a huge David [Guetta] fan. I’m very grateful for the support and being included on the list, it’s very crazy.’

New heights

To celebrate, he played a live stream recorded on top of New York’s 102-storey Empire State Building, the first DJ to do so. ‘It was surreal,’ he said of the set. ‘It’s one of the most iconic buildings in the world, so being on top playing my music was very special. Music has brought me to many crazy places, but this was definitely high up there.’

Garrix broke onto the scene in his mid-teens via his proto-EDM tune, ‘Animals’ and has since collaborated with artists such as Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Usher and U2. His fourth No. 1 spot means he’s now second only to fellow Dutchman Armin van Buuren, who has topped the list five times.

Some 1.3 million votes were counted from 243 countries in this year’s poll, with smaller territories including St Kitts & Nevis, Djibouti, Micronesia, Isle of Man, Palau, the Falkland Islands, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Tuvalu, Montserrat and even Vatican City making up the difference in the 193 countries that are UN members.

Half of the ten most popular DJs come from the Netherlands, including Armin van Buuren (5), Afrojack (6), Don Diablo (9) and Oliver Heldens (10). The first female DJ placed 14^th—Belgian Charlotte de Witte, who has risen eight places since last year.