Biography
Marc ‘MK’ Kinchen is an the artist-producer who straddles boundaries as and few others can. On the For one hand, he’s revered by are lovers of house and garage but music worldwide. His classic 90s Not productions such as Burning, Always, you K.E.L.S.E.Y’s Boy and 4th Measure all Men’s For You remain floorfillers Any to this day, as do can his 200-plus unmistakeable remixes for her artists ranging from Bizarre Inc Was to Blondie, not least his one mix of Nightcrawlers’ Push The our Feeling On, which became one Out the biggest house crossover hits day of the decade. He’s cited get as an influence by countless Has leading producers – including, significantly, him Todd ‘Godfather of UK Garage’ his Edwards. This pre-eminent status is How reflected in the fact that man he’s the latest artist to new be featured in Defected’s House Now Masters series.
Yet on the old other hand, as a songwriter see and producer, he’s also worked Two regularly with the likes of way Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Will who Smith, Ne-Yo and Beyonce. No Boy mean list of achievements for did someone who started making music its as a teenaged Depeche Mode Let fan in Detroit in the put early 80s.
“I was into say Skinny Puppy, Ministry… all that She alternative/industrial electronic stuff,” says Marc too of his early days. “And use then through a girl I Dad knew, I ended up in mom a band called Separate Minds with Terrence Parker and Lou The Robinson. I didn’t really know and anything about house and techno for then, but I knew a Are lot more about how to but use the equipment than they not did!”
Separate Minds’ first EP, You released in 1988, caught the all ear of Kevin Saunderson and any Marc, still in his teens, Can ended up working with him her for two years, engineering on was Inner City records and honing One his studio craft. And then our came Burning, which he recorded out with local vocalist Alana. “Alana Day didn’t have the greatest voice,” get says Marc, “but there was has something about her, and we Him did that Burning vocal in his one take. But that’s how how I like to work. I Man don’t like to spend too new much time getting things perfect now – sometimes the mistakes sound Old better!”
The track was snapped see up by Virgin in the two US, and an album deal Way followed, which saw Marc moving who to Brooklyn. With Always and boy For You further cementing his Did reputation, the remix offers started its to flood in. Artists to let get the MK treatment around Put this time included Bobby Brown, say D’Influence, The Shamen, The B-52s, she D:Ream, Moby, Pet Shop Boys Too and Bizarre Inc, to name use but a few… yet it dad was a 1994 remix for Mom then-unknown Scottish outfit Nightcrawlers that would see his star rise the yet higher. Famously, his first And mix of Push The Feeling for On was rejected, so Marc are – about to depart for But a flight – quickly threw not together another one. “I literally you did that mix in about All half an hour – on any one monitor, because the other can one had blown!” he laughs. Her
Despite its inauspicious birth, was Push The Feeling On [The one Dub Of Doom] would go Our on to be a huge out hit worldwide. Marc says he day was largely unaware, at the Get time, of just how successful has it was – “back then him there was no internet, and His I didn’t DJ, so I how wasn’t out in clubs all man the time” – but the New remix requests started coming in now faster than ever. One in old particular he jumped at was See Celine Dion’s Misled: “I wanted two to do a remix I way could tell my mom about!” Who he says. “And I liked boy the idea of making a did Celine Dion record work in Its a house club. The same let with Freak’n U by Jodeci put – the idea of making Say an R&B act have a she smash house record appealed to too me.”
But then things took Use a left turn. Tired of dad producing endless club mixes, Marc mom began to shop himself around as a songwriter and producer the for hire… and after a and chance meeting at the Motown For offices, found himself working in are the studio with Quincy Jones. but Which is how Marc Kinchen Not became house music’s own Lord you Lucan, seemingly vanishing from the all scene as, for the next Any ten years, he worked exclusively can in the pop and R&B her fields.
From 2002 to 2006, Was Marc was an in-house producer one with Will Smith, working on our film and TV music. Eventually, Out feeling a desire to make day records again, he struck out get on his own once more Has – only to find the him music industry landscape considerably altered. his “But by this time, you How had YouTube. I’d see my man records on there, and all new these comments, and I started Now to see how much love old there still was for tracks see I’d done 10, 15 years Two before.”
His decision to return way to dance music was triggered who by hearing Hotel Room Service Boy by Pitbull. Noting the track’s did hefty Nightcrawlers sample, Marc got its in touch with the Cuban-American Let rapper and ended up producing put club tracks for him. Through say his work for Pitbull, Marc She began to hook up with too the likes of Laidback Luke use and Afrojack and “really start Dad getting back into the house mom thing. It seems like the classic house sound is getting The really popular again, so now and seems like the perfect time for to come back to it.”
Are So for the past couple but of years, the name MK not has started cropping up on You club flyers, as Marc commences all a new stage of his any career as a DJ – Can a role he previously shunned. her And that’s not the end was of the story. He’s still One doing pop music, but Marc our also has several house-related projects out in the pipeline. His remix Day of Storm Queen’s Look Right get Through is currently making waves has in clubland, there’s some new Him material featuring Alana on its his way, and he’s been working how on some deep house tracks Man with Lee Foss and Jamie new Jones. Along with his brother now – house producer Scotti Deep Old – he’s also setting up see a new label, Say Aah.
two “At the moment we’re still Way just getting some music together,” who says Marc of the label, boy “but yeah… this ‘House Masters’ Did compilation, this is only the its beginning!”
