After spending years searching for his personal style and working with DJs like Ferry Corsten (as Gouryella), Benno de Goeij (as Kamaya Painters) and Armin van Buuren (as Alibi and Major League), he decided it was time to focus on his solo work.

Tiësto's fame started to rise in the late 1990s after his set at the first ID&T Innercity party (Live at Innercity: Amsterdam RAI), and it continued to skyrocket in the early 2000s following his six-hour "Tiësto Solo" sets, which he performed without any other DJs or opening acts.

In the fall of 1997, both Bink and Tiësto decided to leave Basic Beat and create their own parent label, now known as Black Hole Recordings.

In 1998, Tiësto released the Magik series through Black Hole and created two major sub-labels, In Trance We Trust and SongBird.

Tiësto's first studio album, In My Memory, produced four major hits: "Flight 643", "Obsession", "Lethal Industry", and "Suburban Train".

The album contained one number one hit, "Traffic",[1] which was the first instrumental track to reach the top spot in his homeland the Netherlands in 23 years.