It's a typically rainy winter night in the capital. A DJ shuffles amidst throngs of club-goers, record box in hand and hood over head, chatting to the flyer-kids, queue-jumpers and street cleaners. We've seen his journey there earlier that evening, his attempts in encouraging the passengers of a London bus to share St Germain's Rose Rouge on his headphones. As the night deepens we see him again, placing white label twelves underneath the wipers of cars. This is a Radio 1 promotional ad and the DJ is Gilles Peterson – 'Musical Missionary'.

During the last five or so years, the 'Nation's Favourite' has begun to tackle the problems it encountered after the 'Blood On The Carpet' culling of its old guard. Daytimes bounced to Britpop, much to the annoyance of ageing rockers like the aptly named, baldness-defying Status Quo. New DJs were installed in nighttime and weekend slots to bring the station up to date with (some of) the varied listening tastes of 'In-ger-land' and the 'you-K'. Which raised the issue of 'identification'. Would 'the kids' devour Mary Anne's mixes as millions of truckers had employed Adrian Juste's banality as their soundtrack to Stranraer? Would the records themselves be enough to hold an audience when they are made by the 'faceless' and played by DJs that don't feel the need to attempt shite jokes every other minute (barring Jules)?

Enter GP. Bringing with him a radio history that began in his parents' garden shed, developed on the pirates, stuttered at Jazz FM (where according to some he was sacked for playing 'peace' records during the Gulf War) and peaked during three years at Kiss, he quickly built on his passionate London audience. Already he is viewed by many as being John Peel's natural successor at the station and certainly the parallels are there. If Peel is our ever-cool Uncle, curious and commited, dedicated to reaching the summit of his demotape mountain, Gilles is our streetwise cousin, arch and able, piecing together the wonderfully weird and engagingly offbeat. A recent 'handover' between the two illustrated the point, with Peel complaining that Peterson plays his records at the correct speeds far too often. He promptly reduced 23 Skidoo to 33, and the pair chuckled like children – an 'in-joke' shared with millions. That's how identification works.

The immersion of jazz (forget the 'nu' bit) into Radio 1's schedules has not been trouble free. A couple of years ago, programmers decided to broadcast Worldwide (Peterson's show) live from Space in Ibiza. It's unkown who decided to place him directly after 'techno' big cheese Carl Cox. "That still goes down as the most frightening experience of my life and I couldn't run away as it was live. He was just finishing this marathon, six-hour, 'set of the year' kind of thing. Everyone's on their second or third pills and it was bangin' hard – I mean really, really hard! I remember getting there and thinking 'no way' as I arrived with my box of weirdy records. Funnily enough, once I'd done it, nothing's frightened me since. I've been on after rave DJ's in Frankfurt in massive warehouses, fucking everyone up with weird shit, but never anything like that night."

It would be wrong to label Peterson as just a 'jazz' DJ. In his youth he progressed through the black West End circuit, the suburban, white, 'soulboy' gatherings and the trendy Soho set built around The Wag club all at once. His shows visit hip hop, afrobeat, drum n bass, downbeat, new world, r'n'b and house consistently. And, most surprisingly, after the demise of Dave Clarke's show and with the exception of the aforementioned Peel, he's possibly Radio 1's foremost supporter of techno. His show championed Juan Atkins' Be Brave, Super_Collider's Darn Cold Way Of Loving, Detroit Grand Pubahs' Sandwiches and Theo Parrish's Smile amongst many others. "Theo Parrish is one of the most interesting aspects of black American music right now. There's that ghetto techno minimalist sound that I particularly like in him. I love Moodymann as well, obviously, but Theo has it right for me. He avoids that cheesy saxophone nonsense the others fall into sometimes, it's black music to the core with tonnes of soul. I also thought the Pole album was one of the records of last year. Techno dub minimalist noise! Jeff Mills and Richie Hawtin represent the more intellectual, literary, scientific sound of the music. Perhaps more than any other form, when you got to Detroit you realise why that music comes from there. Same with Chicago, they are such different cities."

For all of the many talents that Gilles displays, whether in clubs or boardrooms, on compilations or broadcasts, his youthful enthusiasm remains obvious. As we chat his mind skips back and forth through genres and countries, from "back in the day" to "some point in the future", often underlining the centrality of happiness to success. "My biggest fight within myself when it comes to radio is to really enjoy it and that can be difficult when you've got so much to deal with. Sometimes it's just too much and you're exhausted and that's when you get nervous. I'm a complete perfectionist as well, so I put a lot of pressure on myself in anything I do – maybe it's an age thing, since I've been over thirty. I'm aware of the fact that I have a fantastic job and people rely on me and look to me as someone that can make a bit of a difference. It's more than just playing cool records, it' about getting exposure for great artists. The fact that I can go into my basement, get stoned and do a two-hour radio show that pleases so many people is fantastically satisfying."