芝加哥豪斯音乐传奇人物迈克·邓恩，从事dj和制作音乐已有20多年。来自芝加哥Englewood的Mike开始在当地的街区派对上演奏迪斯科，放克，灵魂音乐和芝加哥房子的原型音乐。“我是第一批带着两个卷轴的猫之一，在派对上和它们一起旋转。我拿出两架先锋707，做蜂鸟式、杰克式、庭院式等动作。我还会带一个打鼓机。当派对开始的时候，我会马上走。早在我的伙伴Daft Punk和他们所有人都做现场演出之前，我就在地下室派对上做了——只是带着鼓机，做所有的现场演出。我早期的很多歌曲都是我在派对上唱的，当时派对正在进行。我会把它保存在记忆里，然后带回家擦亮它。但我现在听，就像，该死的… didn’t use enough cleaner!” Word soon spread about his talents and Mike was booked for various clubs in and around Chicago, DJ’ing with house music innovators such as Ron Hardy, Larry Heard and good friend Armando Gallop. It wasn’t long before Mike got the production bug, resulting in his first release in 1987, “Dance You Mutha” on Westbrook Records, he also started to produce and engineer for other Chicago artists, such as Armando, Fast Eddie and K-Alexi Shelby. More house and techno productions followed in the late 80s with Mike’s distinctive vocal delivery and trademark hip-house, acid, production style, to create tracks such as ‘Let It Be House’, ‘Magic Feet’ and “Face the Nation”, sometimes under the name Mike Dunn but also under aliases such as MD Connection, MDIII and QX-1. He continued to produce and release throughout the 1990s, with releases on labels such as Nervous, Nitestuff and Tribal America, whilst also working with other producers and vocalists such as Syleena Johnson, Byron Stingley, Mina Jackson, Kool Rock Steady and Kym English to name a few. More recently tracks like Phreaky MF’ on French label Robsoul and ‘God Made Me Phunky’, re- released on Defected records, have raised his profile and delivered his music to new audiences. Whilst new interest in Mike’s original old school jamz have taken him to work with the new generation of house and techno producers and labels, demonstrated on tracks such as ‘It’s the Music’ produced by Murphy Jaxx and more recently ‘Touch the Sky’ produced by Alden Tyrell and released on Clone’s Jack for Daze imprint and recently unearthed tracks on moreaboutmusic. At the start of 2018 Mike released his first album in 27 years, ‘My House, From All Angles’ that was well received by press and DJs alike. This year also sees the launch of Mike’s label Blackball Muzik as an outlet for Mike’s music productions. After a long absence from DJing in Europe, Mike returned playing at clubs such as Panorama Bar, Concrete, Fabric and Sub Club, and festivals such as Glastonbury, Electric Forrest and numerous others across Europe and US, demonstrating why the Chicago OG is still very much in demand.
