4. 808 StateQuadrastate
My uncle Ricky was the one who got me into the house scene. He passed away around ‘96. He wasn’t a producer or a DJ, he just loved to dance. He was the first person to see me get into DJing. One day I came home, and he’d surprised me by building me a homemade flight case for my turntables and mixer.
He used to listen to this radio station, WKKC. It was a lot of DJs playing deep house music and what would become known as ghetto tracks. One day he was just dancing, and the song he was listening to, I never heard anything like it. It was so relaxing! Then a couple of days later I heard it on the radio again.
I was in my junior year of high school then. One day I was walking down the street and I saw a guy I knew, who was a DJ. I helped him move his equipment in his car and asked him to show me how to DJ. Later he made me a tape and the first track he played was 808 State. ‘That’s the song!’ He told me it was called ‘Pacific State’. I finally got the vinyl last year and I keep it to the side as it’s one of my favourites to just play. It was a breath of fresh air in new dance music like I’d never heard before.
