Ryan Gary Raddon (born February 25, 1971), better known by his stage name Kaskade, is an American DJ, record producer and remixer. DJ Times voted Kaskade "America's Best DJ" in 2011 and 2013. DJ Mag named Kaskade fifty-first on its 2009 list of Top 100 DJs. Early life Born in Chicago, Kaskade grew up in nearby Northbrook and attended Glenbrook North High School. As a teenager, he would shop for music at Gramaphone Records on Clark Street in Chicago. His brother, Rich Raddon, became an entrepreneur and film producer. He attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah from 1989 to 1990, working on his DJ skills in his dorm room. At age 19, Raddon served a two-year full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan. Following his mission, in 1992, he moved to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah, eventually graduating with a degree in communications. While attending school, Kaskade and his close friend Jodi Call ran a record store in Salt Lake City called Mechanized. Musical career 1995–2000: Early beginnings In 1995, Raddon began DJing his first monthly Monday night party at a basement venue called Club Manhattan. He used this additional income to purchase studio essentials. In May 2000, Raddon moved to San Francisco with his wife where he got a job working as an A&R assistant to John Elkins at Om Records, a house and electronic label. To Raddon's benefit, San Francisco was an emerging site of a new deep house movement. While at OM records he continued DJing and producing music. Soon after, Raddon created his alter ego, Kaskade, which his wife worried would remind people of the dish detergent. He took his stage name from a nature book when he saw a picture of a waterfall and a co-worker agreed "cascade" was a good choice, but he then changed the spelling. He did not take his name from the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest as fans sometimes cite. After mixing the third volume in the Sounds of Om series, Ryan was offered a three-album deal for Kaskade. He kicked off the deal with a full-length house debut, It's You It's Me. Garnering critical acclaim, spawning several singles, and receiving a prestigious Dance Star nomination for Best New Artist, the release put Kaskade squarely on the dance music world's radar. Concentrating on his DJing skills, Kaskade started