Todd Terry

Royal House - The Royal House Album - Can You Party (1988)

The Todd Terry Project - To The Batmobile Let's Go (1988)

Born in Brooklyn, Terry began DJing in the early '80s while still a teenager, spinning hip-hop at school events and on the street with a team called the Scooby Doo Crew. He increasingly listened to Italian disco as well, and when the house sound of Chicago dropped in the mid-'80s, Terry the DJ made an official switch to house music. In league with fellow New York DJ/producer/remixers Little Louie Vega and Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez, Terry borrowed the Masters at Work guise -- which Vega and Gonzalez would later popularize -- for one of his first big productions, the 1987 single "Alright Alright"; the single became a milestone on New York's early house scene. The Jungle Brothers, another crew of hip-hop heads who were beginning to stray into house, hooked up with Terry and the collaboration resulted in "I'll House You," one of the earliest and most high-profile fusions of hip-hop and house .
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The added prestige transferred back to his own name for two wildly popular 1988 singles, "Weekend" and "Bango (To the Batmobile)," both released as the Todd Terry Project. Perhaps preferring the adoration of the faithful, Terry later resorted to dozens of aliases for dozens of club hits --Black Riot, Bombshell , Bootman, Chrome , CLS, D'Effect, D.M.S., Dred Stock, English Friday, Frontline, Gypsymen, Hardhouse, House Of Gypsies, INCS, KXP, Lime Life, Masters At Work , Orange Lemon, Raid, The, Royal House, Sax, Sound Design, Static, Swan Lake, Tech Nine, Todd Terry All Stars, Todd Terry Project, The, Youngbloods. Despite his wealth of released material, Terry remixed dozens of artists as well, including Sting, Björk, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner, Malcolm McLaren, Annie Lennox, Robert Plant, and Technotronic, among others. The British house boom of the early '90s provided Terry with many an overseas gig, including a high-profile residency at the London superclub Ministry of Sound. His proficiency on the decks became a minor sensation, causing several British journalists to describe him as "God."
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