There are some people in the dance music world who start out humble but change over time. They enter a world where they’re constantly travelling around and never get told no to any request. Hence why many of the DJs in the upper echelons of dance music are basically spoiled brats.

Exactly what happened with Yousef Zaher, who just uses his first name for DJ purposes, isn’t as clear. Sources whom I’ve spoken to over the past few months describe to me a man who, in the words of one, is “determined and one of life’s grafters – but also doesn’t settle for anything less than exactly what he wants”.

He also doesn’t appear to like it when anyone disagrees with him – as I discovered back in September after noticing he’d blocked this blog’s Twitter account. I personally think a veteran of house music like him should be able to take a bit of flak, but he clearly cannot.

But he wasn’t always like this. The Muzik Magazine bot tweeted out page 15 of the March 2000 issue earlier this week. In it was a column by a much younger Yousef – and just look at what he had to say…

So when did Yousef become so touchy and thin-skinned? Sadly, I doubt the answer to this particular question exists in a column written by the man himself…