There are moments in your life that divide everything into before and after. For me, one of those moments came in 1992, during a trip to New York City. I'd been deep into house music for years already — collecting records, absorbing everything from hip-hop to industrial to early house and Detroit techno. But what I experienced that night was something else entirely.
I visited the legendary Club Shelter and heard Timmy Regisford play. The warmth. The emotional depth. The spiritual energy of deep house in that room. It hit me in a way that I can still feel today, more than thirty years later. There was a communion happening on that dance floor — between the DJ, the music, and the people. It wasn't performance. It was connection.
Kerri Chandler's Atmosphere EP
On that same trip, I picked up Kerri Chandler's "Atmosphere EP." If Shelter was the experience that opened the door, that record was what I walked through. The production was deep, warm, and endlessly musical. It had swing. It had soul. It had that unmistakable New York feeling — sophisticated but raw, polished but never sterile.
That record — and that night at Shelter — brought my love of deep house fully into focus. It made me want to become a DJ more than ever before. Not just someone who played records, but someone who could create that same kind of feeling in a room. That spiritual, emotional, physical experience where the music becomes something bigger than sound.
The Ripple Effect
When I came home, everything shifted. I found myself even more immersed in the local underground. I started digging deeper — not just into the music itself, but into the culture, the history, the lineage. I wanted to understand where these sounds came from, who made them, and why them mattered.
Looking back, I realize that night at Shelter wasn't just a great party. It was the moment my relationship with this music became permanent. It set me on the path I've been walking ever since — as a DJ, as a producer, and as someone who believes deeply in what this culture represents.
Every time I step behind the decks, some part of me is still chasing that feeling from 1992. And honestly? I think that's exactly how it should be.