DERRICK CARTER BIO

Derrick Carter is widely acknowledged as one of the best DJs in the world. With innovative productions, flawless technical skills and an effortless attitude of rocking a crowd, his influence has infiltrated throughout dance music.

Although known as one of the key players of Chicago’s house music wave in the ’90s, Derrick Carter began DJ’ing at the age of nine, spinning disco records at family reunions. Raised in the western suburbs, Derrick was into music very early. During his teens Chicago’s house scene sucked him in for and before long he became a strong presence in the city’s underground scene. “When I got my driver’s license at 16 my sneak ability was validated,” he laughs. “I was a serious bedroom jock for a long time. After you mix for the love of it for six or seven years, you get it pretty tight and you can take it on the road.”

He worked at dance-music specialty stores Importes. IEtc. Gramaphone, & Baby O’s while gigging at parties, and eventually landing regular DJ stints including residencies at Shelter, Foxy’s, and Smart Bar.

Derrick’s sets are rooted in house, but he freely travels outside club tastes, seamlessly incorporating old-school disco, soul, jazz, R&B, and whatever else catches his fancy.

By refusing to accept conventional standards and choosing to simply do his own thing. he has built a worldwide reputation as one of the underground pioneers. Becoming a respected peer amongst dance-music aficionados. “So many people come up to me and say, ‘Man, I had the worst day. My partner left me, I locked my keys in my car, but you turned me for a few hours, and that made me able to get up in the morning.’ That’s a pretty decent job.”

In 1988 Derrick, fellow DJ Mark Farina, and friend Chris Nazuka released an EP as the group Symbols & Instruments. The record had a strong influence on the burgeoning Ambient/Ambient Techno movement in England. While it wasn’t a huge commercial success, it established Derrick as a figure in the underground dance-music scene. Since then he’s been involved with a number of recording projects, firstly his solo project Sound Patrol, the pseudonym for his first album ‘Sweetened, -No Lemon’ which exuded a soulfulness and low-key grittiness that resonated beyond its humble origins and was a departure from the machine-like quality of the dance music fare of the time.

Since then the pioneering, innovative tracks and consequent critical acclaim have marked Derrick out as an important player in dance music – most notably through his releases on Classic, the label he founded with Luke Solomon. Derrick’s first release was as Rednail with ‘I Think of You’, followed by ‘Nu Pschidt’ and ‘Hope’ under his own name. 1999 saw the release of ‘Nü Pschidt’. It combined woven scatting with sleepy minimal beats on ‘Dreaming Again’ which was a recasting of an earlier track produced by Cajmere for Casual Records, a piece with his own low, sexy drawl over his trademark Carter grooves to form ‘Boompty Boomp Theme’ – a name which has become synonymous with Derrick’s sound since his mom’s critique of his music reached the press, and ‘Birthday Song (For Andy) which was written as a present to his beau at the time, Andy Butler, later of Hercules & Love Affair.

Seminal EPs ‘Where U At?’, ‘Mo Pschidt’, albums ‘Squaredancing In A Round House’, ‘Poverty De Luxe’, and ‘Nearest Hits & Greatest Misses’ (a collection of remixes for Tortoise, Modjo, The Human League, The Supermen Lovers and many more), plus guest compilations like his ‘Choice’ collection for Azuli Records, Fabric 52, and seminal Mixmag comp ‘Cosmic Disco’ have consolidated his standing as one of the legends of scene.

ARTIST LINKS
http://www.derrickcarter.com
https://soundcloud.com/blucu
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Derrick-Carter/8264478846