Chicago, IL · house · chicago-house

Derrick Carter

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Chicago house royalty and one of the great technical selectors — decades deep and still unpredictable, mixing with a jazz musician's wit.

Derrick Carter was born in Compton, California, in 1969 and grew up on punk, R&B, disco and house. He started DJing as a child, playing his first party in seventh grade, and was already working local clubs by his teens. A brief stretch at the University of Illinois ended in expulsion, sending him back to Chicago, where a job at the record store Imports Etc put him at the center of the city's house explosion.

His first release, "Fantasy Girl," came out under the name Conception. In 1988 he teamed with Mark Farina and Chris Nazuka as Symbols & Instruments for the EP Mood, a record that did little at home but fed directly into the ambient techno and garage sounds forming in the UK. Carter played his first shows abroad in 1991, and international bookings followed steadily after.

The label he ran with Luke Solomon, Classic Music Company, was co-founded in 1995 with Chez Damier and became known for a catalogue that starts at number 100 and counts down. He also recorded as part of Blue Cucaracha, Sound Patrol and Tone Theory, and worked as a remixer for artists including The Beloved, The Human League, Ricky Martin, Modjo, DJ Sneak and Röyksopp.

As a DJ, Carter is known for technical command and a broad, unpredictable selection that moves between disco edits, deep house, jacking Chicago tracks and oddities, often mixed at length and rooted in 1970s soul, disco and jazz. His Fabric mix and long-running residencies established his reputation outside the United States, and in 2006 a Newcity readers' survey placed him at No. 53 among the 100 most famous Chicagoans, alongside Felix da Housecat and Frankie Knuckles.

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