Joey Negro
(A.K.A. Jakatta, The Hed Boys, Doug Willis, RAVEN MAIZE, The Sunburst Band, Sessomatto, Z Factor etc etc. Label boss of Z Records UK Ltd)
He made disco cool when they said, “Disco is dead” and is widely
regarded as one of the founding faces of the UK garage and house music scene.
Ten years on and Dave Lee aka JOEY NEGRO, the HED BOYS, DOUG WILLIS, RAVEN
MAIZE is still at the forefront of the global scene but still hasn’t
decided what name to go by!
Universally acknowledged as the master of all things disco, Dave, under the pseudonym of JOEY NEGRO, was one of the first producers to sample disco music and was largely responsible for giving meaning to the term ‘disco house’.
Negro is without doubt an understated genius and a legend. A master at work in the studio and on the decks, he never fails to get the floor moving and grooving into a delirious and hedonistic state of pleasure. A producer first and foremost, Negro uses his DJing talents as a sound-bed for tweaking his musical creations to optimum perfection. It is this magic that has produced what can only be described as some of the most memorable highlights of a decade of British dance music. With such tracks as Joey Negro’s Top 10 anthemic hits of “Must Be The Music” and “Can’t Get High Without You” featuring Taka Boom on vocals, Sessomato’s seductive overtures of “Moody”, Mistura’s funky brass fuelled “You Can’t Run From My Love”, Sunburst Band’s hypnotic groove of the ”Garden Of Love” and the revered Thelma Houston collaboration of “I Need Someone Tonight” with Andrew ’Doc’ Livingstone, are just a few of his magical creations and masterpieces.
But it wasn’t always this way…
A young David Lee grew up on the South Coast of England during the late 70’s and early 80’s listening to his local radio stations and tuning into the sounds of Earth Wind & Fire, Heatwave, Shalimar and The Jacksons. A lack of good quality music at the time encouraged Dave to seek out his musical desires further a field in the record shops of London. Excursions to London’s vinyl mecca became fanatical, almost religious, to buy the latest vinyl records and imports that were not being played in the local nightclubs or on mainstream radio at the time.
It was inevitable that Dave would end up working in a record shop. It was a job with London vinyl store Smithers & Leigh that he was to first hear the revered house classic “Jack Your Body” and “I Can Feel It” that were to later become a major inspiration for him to produce his own records.
It didn’t take long for Dave to make an impression on Rough Trade who offered him a job in their distribution department setting up a dance arm called D-Mix. His first client accounts were with Rhythm King who had a number of hits at the time from acts such as Bomb The Bass, S-Express, Cookie Crew, Beatmasters and a label called 4AD who had a hit with “Pump Up The Volume” by MARRS.
Big Life was also one of Dave’s labels that planned to release a record by an act called Dance Society. It was at Dave’s suggestion that they used Coldcut to remix the record that they subsequently signed to Big Life as an artist.
Whilst Dave had established himself at Rough Trade, he was finally able to fulfil his ambition of working in the studio. His first track was called “Get Busy” by MDEMM and reached #88 in the UK charts and #18 in the club charts. This was enough to convince Dave that after years of advising other labels with ideas and projects the time was right to start up his own label.
In early 1988 he set up REPUBLIC RECORDS - probably the UK’s first soulful house label. It was on REPUBLIC that Dave was to finally achieve recognition for introducing ‘garage’ as a genre of music in its own right with classics such as PHASE II’s “Reachin” and TURNTABLE ORCHESTRA’s “You’re Gonna Miss Me” to the UK market. The best of his own work at the time was, according to Dave, “Forever Together” by one of his alter egos RAVEN MAIZE - recognised for its infectious hook and still as fresh today as when it was originally released. Rumour has it Dave pretended RAVEN MAIZE was a convict, fresh out of prison. Dave used a computer-enhanced image of a friend sporting an afro for a press shot. This led to much speculation and built up hype around the song.
Around this time, JOEY NEGRO found fame ‘across the pond’. Dave thought JOEY NEGRO sounded like a New York Hispanic, and believed it would appear more exotic to a British audience. Joey’s first track “Do It, Believe It” was released in 1990 in the U.S. by cult house label NU GROOVE. The follow up track, “Do What You Feel” stormed the clubs and was also later released by VIRGIN/TEN records becoming a Top 40 pop hit, giving Dave credibility as a producer and securing him an album deal with VIRGIN. For all his hard work and brilliant remixes for both dance and pop artists, both DMC/MIXMAG and DJ magazine crowned Dave with the title ‘Best U.K. Remixer’ in 1992.
Dave’s reputation as a highly skilled producer and remixer has resulted in many chart-topping liaisons with high profile pop acts. He’s done remixes and productions for stars like, ARTFUL DODGER, M-PEOPLE, DIANA ROSS, PET SHOP BOYS, BRAND NEW HEAVIES, ULTRA NATE, SISTER SLEDGE, SIMPLY RED, LIONEL RITCHIE to name but a few.
From REPUBLIC RECORDS, Z RECORDS was born. Using Z as an outlet for his own material, Dave has continued to champion all things funky and soulful with a consistently high level of quality underground releases that gets better and better with each release. And so was born another alias, THE HED BOYS, whose anthem “Girls And Boys” became a UK Top 20 pop hit in 1994.
But it doesn’t stop there, the label’s also showcased the remix and production work of others such luminaries as BLAZE, BASEMENT JAXX, FAZE ACTION, SENSORY ELEMENTS, BINI & MARTINI, CRASH, and SEAMUS HAJI’S BIG BANG THEORY. As if that wasn’t enough, such is his reputation for injecting disco back into the 21st century, he was drafted in to work with TAKE THAT - producing their worldwide smash No.1 hit “Relight My Fire”. Not surprisingly, that led to other projects in a similar vein, as the man behind boy-band 911’s successful re-working of the BEE GEES classic “More Than a Woman” in 1998.
Dave is truly an accomplished and highly respected producer/ remixer who consistently never fails to delight the underground dance music scene with his classic records, whilst also sprinkling a little of the Joey Negro magic over the pop world.
His last big time offering the compulsive Jakatta “ American Dream”, sparked a bidding war among the majors and stormed into the national charts this month at No.3 – certainly the biggest house track so far this year. Now his latest underground track Raven Maize “ The Real Life” looks set for similar crossover success and has been subject to the same kind of six figure A& R signing frenzy.
Dave Lee, Joey Negro, The Hed Boys, Raven Maize, Z Factor - call him what you will, he is one of the dance music scene’s best kept secrets, modest, hugely talented, a little quirky, perhaps mad. (Have you seen his strange choice of masks for appearances on Top of The Pops??) He is also one of the nicest, hardest working DJ/Producer/Remixers in the business.
Mixes available special request.
Copyright © 2006 The Treatment