Quentin Harris
As a five-year-old he was teaching himself the piano. At thirteen he was making music in his uncle’s recording studio. As a young man he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Eminem, Jay Dee and Slum Village before anyone even knew who they were. And at 20 he was recording sessions as a trumpeter with Aretha Franklin. Prodigy doesn’t even start to cover it when it comes to Quentin Harris. Quentin Harris is a musician, DJ and producer, a leader and innovator in the field of Soulful House (though Harris himself doesn’t confine himself to ‘genres’ and proves it by consistently breaking their boundaries).
He came to renown through a string of club hits including his own, ‘Let’s Be Young’, and remixes of Donnie’s ‘Cloud 9’ and Mariah Carey’s ‘Don’t Forget About Us’ and has twice been voted Re-mixer of the Year by his peers at New York’s Underground Archive awards, having worked that Harris magic on tracks by artists ranging from Justin Timberlake to R.E.M over his 15 years experience in the industry. Born and raised in Detroit amongst a family of musicians, Quentin learned piano and trumpet and eventually took a course in musical education, dropping out when he realised there wasn’t much left for him to learn: “Why should I give you all my money and get myself in debt for something that you can’t teach me,” is how he puts it.
But it was true: Quentin didn’t need teaching; music was already a part of his psyche: he had been creating his own Hip-Hop and (more covertly) House music since he was 12 years old. His style was - and is still - influenced by his Detroit upbringing and not only because of a love of Hip-Hop. He grew up immersed in early techno, blues, funk, soul and Motown and it was his ability to see the potential in every sound and his passion for all types of music that has made him one of the most distinctive and versatile artists of our time. “I have a very diverse following,” he says. “It comes from all of the different musical backgrounds I have; I just incorporate them all into what I do.”
Given his first job in a Detroit record store in the early 90s, Quentin continued to develop his obsession for Hip Hop and House whilst working as a session musician, providing trumpet for contenders at Maurice Malone’s legendary open-mic sessions at The Hip-Hop Shop, as immortalised in the Eminem movie 8 Mile. It was around this time that he began making trips to New York, where he found inspiration in the legendary sets of Timmy Regisford at Club Shelter and in the unique feel of clubs like Sound Factory. “What I fell in love with in New York was the energy that people have on the dance floor,” he says. “They yell, they scream, they stomp their feet.”
Quentin first experienced success as a producer for Hip-Hop outfit Masterminds and was able to quench his thirst for the New York scene on his visits to work with them but was asked to leave the group when, in typical Quentin Harris fashion, it became clear he was unwilling to confine himself to just one genre and to sacrifice his own experimentation for the sake of appearances. “I have this crazy ability to teeter-totter on what is commercial and what is underground…” he explains. “I don’t think they could deal with it.” It was this ability to experiment and force musical worlds to collide that led to Quentin catching the ear of some of New York’s finest House-music professionals and in 1998 he moved to New York permanently and began working at legendary music store, Satellite Records, where Ben Johnson of record label Restricted Access firmly encouraged his talent. In 2001 a copy of a Quentin Harris India Arie remix made its way into the hands of his idol, club DJ Timmy Regisford and, as Harris puts it, “the rest is history” It was the beginning of a relationship that would establish Quentin as a regular DJ at Shelter and lead him to international recognition.
Since 2001 Quentin’s career has spiralled to dizzy heights. He has worked extensively for Restricted Access and a plethora of other major US record labels; producing, remixing and creating original work. The track ‘Let’s Be Young’ established him as a major-player in the Europe House scene and his records are at the top of dance charts and DJ play-lists from Japan to South Africa. His debut album No, Politics (released on Strictly Rhythm) was released in 2007 and is already achieving “classic” status, containing as it does some of Quentin’s original house classics alongside more recent and diverse material. “No Politics is a small window into my crazy mind, and my mind is only going to get crazier,” he warns. A regular DJ at Shelter, (which has become a spiritual/musical home for Quentin) mid-2007 saw Quentin launch his own night - Kiss My Black Ass - a party, open to everyone, which combines all of the elements of Quentin’s vision for a dance scene that knows no boundaries. “I feel music is something that brings people together,” he says, speaking as a black gay man. “My nights are very mixed – gay straight, it’s everything: club kids, people who come in their costumes, some girl had a lamp-shade on her head… I was like, ‘That’s fine!’”
Hard-working and visionary, Quentin is respected by peers and fans alike. Three new singles are set to be released in the coming year – ‘My Joy’, ‘Joy’ and ‘Can’t Stop’; and though you can never quite tell what Quentin will come up with next, you can always tell, without a doubt, that it’s going to be mind-blowing.
