House Music Has A Home

DJ Disciple aka David Banks has climbed to the top of the house music ladder with DJ residencies all over the world, from Red-Lite in Montreal to Motor in Detroit. His groundbreaking sets at Pacha in Ibiza, Release (San Francisco), and Ministry Of Sound (UK) would have him play these venues at least three times a year. DJ Magazine twice named Disciple one of the world’s top 100 DJs. He has a faithful following that live for his inspired journeys as well as respect from Pete Tong, BBC Radio 1 and MTV Europe. 

There is hardly any major DJ or artist that has not been affected by his illustrious touch. Emerging out of Brooklyn, his influences go deep into the church, funk, soul, gospel and House sounds that surrounded him as he grew up. His family have worked with some incredible names, so it was hardly surprising that Disciple would become such an influential DJ and producer. 

As with all the artists we have interviewed over the past year, the pandemic has impacted the way Disciple lives and approaches life. He is continuing to release music at break neck speed and recently produced the brilliant 'My Sweet Self' with AMORELLE. He is soon to release a book about his life's work, so we could not steal too much of his thunder but suffice to say the DJ Disciple story is one worth knowing. 

As he traverses a busy and fulfilling schedule, we were extremely lucky to sit down with him and discuss his sweet self?

How are you doing David? How have you been coping during COVID?

It's been a good thing for me in a bad time. And I say that, because what COVID has forced me to do was to really see the scope of what I missed in dance music, because things were sometimes going too fast. You need to catch up to some of the things that you've been missing. I've never put out as much music as I have in my life. I put out two releases a month now. So putting out music was a part of the ethic that I had lost since I had my daughter. 

Now, the other thing that COVID has done is made me have to study fourth grade math all over again; that is a good thing, because it's challenging, but also because now I'm one on one with my daughter and I can bond much closer with her. I'm a full-time dad. So that means that I'm able to be in every step lock and key with her all the way. That was a blessing. The third thing that's happened to me is that I have still been able to DJ mostly through COVID. I play for more than one scene. I also play for the restaurant scene. I am the music programmer at Martha’s Country Bakery in Williamsburg. I play music while people just sit, enjoy themselves and listen to the ear candy. The downside of COVID is that I could not socially distance from the fridge lol

So many DJs and singers come from Brooklyn, but what was your life like growing up?

My dad was an accountant and he served in World War II. He was placed in the Farragut projects, because they were homes for military people; black men that were just coming from the war. My father played with Miles Davis as a piano player. So we go back to jazz. My mother and my dad met at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. That's how far music goes back with the family. 

When I was born, there was five of us and we all had an instrument. Stanley was the first one that had the real success because he went to Cafe Wa. The guy that wrote ‘Black and I'm Proud’ Pee Wee Ellis, who was also the writer for James Brown, hired my brother Stanley to go on tour with jazz great Esther Phillips. From there, he hooked up with Stevie Wonder's percussionist and that led to him becoming the bass player for George Benson… 

So, just picture it now. I am 5 years old. The first DJ, that is one of the founding fathers of DJs is Grandmaster Flowers. Him and my brother played football together. Flowers was known for graffiti. But he was also one of the very first DJs starting in 1969. Out of that community, Kenny Carpenter and my brother Larry went to FDR high school. My brother and Jocelyn brown used to be close and she would call my mother all the time. She was tight with my mom. She even had my mother come down to CBGB’s to sit and hear her perform. 

So this is the culture and climate I was around. That's how it started. DJ influences like Charisma Funk, Charlie Victor; A lot of these guys that were influential DJs came to Farragut Projects to play music. One of Grandmaster Flowers disciples was DJ Debonair. He helped Flowers do sound and Flowers was so influential. He is one of the unheralded DJs of that era. Obviously, Flowers lost his way to drugs. I was around when he got clean but a lot of people fell during the crack epidemic and the crack era. For a lot of young black kids, House Music was an escape from that. 

The culture that was around me was so musical. Puffy Combs was my brother Larry's assistant, working as an intern. Larry was also a writer for Mary J. Blige. He would cook and she would come to his house so that he could write songs for her. There was always politics and her management wanted to go a different direction with her. But I'm seeing George Benson doing a score for Muhammad Ali’s, The Greatest’, which my brother Stanley plays the bass on. I would go see George play and stand backstage behind Harvey Mason playing the drums. 

You see, I'm a drummer. I played drums, and my mother at eight years old put me in a drum corp. Then Larry got into gospel music. That's how I got introduced to it and how I fell into the church. As a drummer, I had to learn from other gospel musicians. Listening to drummers like Jeff Davis and so forth from the Walter Hawkins Family. Those gospel artists like Winans and Commissioned were all creating music and then I started traveling uptown to play drums for the Greater Refuge Temple, which was a church in Harlem. 

My high school development was different from a lot of people. Back then, in the 60s and 70s, blacks hung out with blacks, Italians hung with Italians, Jews hung with Jews. I went to all white schools all my life. So I had a different upbringing on both ends. There was racial discrimination within the community, not the school, but the community. New York was a racial hotbed at that time. 

You did a lot of college radio too?

I went to Baruch College. My dad wanted me to be an accountant. After two months I realized it was not for me. I met a guy named Ralph Davis, his name is Kool D, and he worked for WBMB Baruch college radio station. I was a writer for a magazine called ‘The Ticker’. I was stuck into my journalistic craft, because I couldn't really succeed in business. So Ralph comes and I interview him. He was a security guard for the YMCA parties that used to have Doug E Fresh, Rob Base, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five etc; all these hip-hop artists. He asked me to do a show on the college station and we made it a gospel show as no one else was doing that. 

I ran into DJ Jazzy Jerome. He turned me on to Chicago House Music from 85-86. It blew my mind. So me and Jazzy bonded immediately to the point where I wanted to go where he was playing. One of the first places that I saw him playing at was a Baruch college party. I heard him play Marshall Jefferson’s, ‘Move Your Body’. And just think about the backdrop of how people dressed back then. People were dressing in ways that identified with the music. Rap had its own look: Kangol hats, Cazell glasses, sheepskin coats, Gucci, Louie Vuitton, Lee Jeans, and Adidas sneakers. The house clubber had a different identity. Men would get a faded Mohawk and sometimes dye it. The apparel consisted of ripped jeans, spandex, baggy pants (for the serious dancer), Patton boots, Velour suits, Doc Martens, Benetton, biker shorts, combat boots, and Fila sneakers. 

A lot of girls wore one piece body suits. They would do dirty dancing with the guys. There would be some African dancing. There would be some different kind of breakdancing that revolved around this House Music. 

Now, I'm not knowing that there's a whole other culture coming behind this. But what I noticed was that there were two groups of dancers. There were people at that party from college. And then there were people that were from the Paradise Garage. So you had Garage heads mixing with college kids. My generation was the last generation to have that kind of hold on House Music. 

I then got a start at WNYE 91.5FM hosting ‘The Best Kept Secret’ and this is how my popularity was gained. It was one of the very few FM stations other than Tony Humphries to really start pushing House Music on radio. I was also using that radio platform to promote the college parties and I was getting massive numbers doing that. To the point where I was approached by DJ David Camacho. David lived in Jersey, he worked with a guy named Greg Day, and they were doing Wildpitch parties. It was in 87; the Paradise Garage had closed and there was no place for kids to go. Wildpitch became a safe haven and was the bridge for those kids to still continue partying. They asked me to play for them and the first gig I played was The World!!

Then my friend, Sabrina Vazquez said I needed to go to this other venue. It was David Mancuso’s club called The Choice and I saw Larry Levan play. It was the first time I met him and it was the first time I heard him play a college event. So fast forward a year and I get interviewed by Richard Vasquez and Joey Illinois, one of Larry's DJs from the Paradise Garage and they invited me to play even though I had never been to the Garage. I wouldn't know how to play certain classics at certain times like they did at the Garage, so they had me alternate with Larry. I would play one Thursday and Larry would play the following one. I never really knew the impact of Larry at that time, because by then, Larry was more reliant on drugs. He had sold his record collection. He wasn't the same DJ. 

When I started DJing at The Choice, the black crowd started changing too. No more were they wearing the leotards and all that other stuff. There was more African gear because everybody was anti-apartheid. They wanted messages in their music. We were getting records like ‘Motherland’ and Jay Williams’ Sweat and all these other records in the ‘90s that were Africanized. Jr. Vasquez was doing a Friday and Saturday night at the Sound Factory. A lot of those kids would go there. I started falling in love with the music of The Choice but I didn't know how to play classics. So DJ Camacho taught me how to play them. I would get the records from DJ Debonair because he had access to them. He was also the person that was responsible for me getting a sound system because I didn't have one.

But the people that really taught me and showed me about the different styles of House Music, are Roman Ricardo and Johnny Dynell. Those were DJs that were able to get straight and gay crowds to be able to have a party together. Same with Larry and Kenny Carpenter. They knew how to play for a straight crowd. But if you knew how to play for the gay crowd in New York, you were winning. So I had to learn how to DJ to various groups of people. I never marginalized myself. 

I met Roger Sanchez in Manhattan. He was selling tapes and we became friends. I would go to his studio and watch him because we were both playing parties in New York. He was doing Ego-Trip parties and I was doing Wildpitch. What wound up happening was I was getting music from him. At this time, I would go to many producers’ places to get music from them. I would go to Todd Terry's house and I would get his music before it was even signed or anything. I met Louie Vega and I would go to Louie’s studio and pick up whatever new stuff that he would have before even some of the labels listened to it. I would get my stuff from those people. Camacho had the same hookup. Matter of fact Camacho was responsible for getting the record ‘Follow Me’ signed which we also broke on radio. We were breaking records like hot cakes. And so long story short. I was gaining traction

DJ Dove and I became friends. One time I left all my music at home and he went over to my house and came back with it. From that day forward, he became a partner in my radio show. He would cover if I was away or if I had something to do. He would become part of the radio show. As a show we featured female DJs like Donna Edwards and MK. That was a really big thing in New York. We were breaking new ground.

I know you also worked with Brother Basil. What does that relationship mean to you? 

He is an amazing guy. After me and Larry alternated for a few weeks, Richard came in and replaced Larry. He swapped Larry out and brought in DJ Basil for Thursday nights. And what wound up happening was Basil started working at bigger clubs, most notably, Kilimanjaro. Basil is an amazing DJ that knew how to play new music, and knew how to play classics. I didn't mind learning from other DJs and there are certain ones like Nick Jones, like Basil; like Camacho. When you hear them play, they are an education on how to do long sets, on how to approach crowds differently. He's had a stellar career, amazing.

Eventually you made the obligatory trip to the UK.

So. Camacho goes there and he introduces me to JP Firmin who loves Jersey House Music and so forth. He asked if I would like to come to the UK and play? I said, Yeah. So I came to the UK. This is November 92 and I get greeted by Noel Watson and Phil Asher.

Rest in peace.

Yes. Rest in peace. So first thing they bring me down to is Vinyl Solution to see what I’m working with. They never heard any of it before. I had become so tight with the labels and was getting acetates they never heard. I would have all the acetates, test pressings and promos. The first club I played there was the Lakota in Bristol. I'm rocking as soon as I start but it was only a two-hour set. I was sad lol. From there I got to play everywhere.

And as you exploded onto the world stage you started your own label.

I'll be honest with you. The reason why I found Catch 22 Recordings was because I wanted to keep my own masters. I wanted to control all of the music that I was putting out. I would license it to different compilations but I just wanted to have a platform where I could release my own work with different writers and co-collaborators. I've been very fortunate in my career to work with a number of people. JP Firmin’s brother was called Si and he worked with Grant Nelson. I started doing stuff out of Grant’s studio. I also did a remix for Booker T. This is ‘94. I did a track with Basement Jaxx. I worked with Mousse T and Boris Dlugosch at their Peppermint Park studio. I've worked with Warren Clarke of ATFC; Michele Chiavarini, Prok and Fitch, David Tort. I've been able to work with a lot of people because they were attracted to my use of vocalists, my SP1200 and they liked the way I did musical arrangements…

I've worked with a lot of good vocalists over the years. I did work with Michelle Weeks and Dawn Tallman. Michelle Weeks used to live two or three blocks away from me and I met Dawn at the Sound Factory Bar. She would go up to the Bronx and hang out with me and do songs with me there. So, that history of producing for Catch 22 led to me working with international artists and having really great success there.

So moving forward to right now. What’s the New York scene like currently?

A lot of black DJs in New York don't really play Deep House as it was back in the day. You find a lot of the black DJs do the Afro thing. Especially DJs in their 50s 40s and late 30s. 90% of their set is Afro House. Because that's the language of the dance floor currently in Brooklyn, New Jersey; they relate to South African House. So what has happened, that for the new DJs, or new youth culture and House Music in New York, there's been a divorce between Deep House and South African House. They are not playing the deep stuff. 

There are not enough black DJs that invest in Deep House that are new, that are investing in Tech House that are new, because they’ve been formulated to love just South African House from the motherland. No diversity. They just put you straight in the jungle. Some Americans have made headway making that genre but why would you book an American DJ playing South African House where they could get the original producer from South Africa and book them in?

So it kind of defeats the purpose. Now I'm not knocking it because I play South African House myself... I love it. I do. But I like to mix things up. I'm not going to be a purist when it comes to musical selection. I love House. I'm not going to divorce myself from it just because I also love South African House. 

Look, what happened in 2005-2006. You had Quentin Harris, Timmy Regisford, Dennis Ferrer making House and it was acceptable by House audiences. Now you got guys playing their Afro House sound which is popular. You have the Latin rhythms coming to the fore front: that whole New York collective. But no new wave of black producers are making Deep House because not many are playing it on the dancefloor. The evidence of that is the lack of black American producers in that space. Yes, some producers are playing the deep Soulful stuff. From that older generation. Us. We’re good. But I’m talking about the younger generation. 

Do you think that’s because producers won’t move out of their lane? 

People can say that house music is whitewashed. But they also have to understand that it's not so much about whitewashing as much as it is about what we are doing as a community to embrace younger DJs that are coming up and have a love for Deep House. I'm not just a talker about these things.  In 2006 I started The Next Level Party In Brooklyn but It was with this ambition that I started doing parties at Sapphire Lounge/ Rumpus Room from 2011 until the pandemic started. I was doing a Deep House night called ‘Release’ in 2011. We would bring Mr. V, Tony Humphries, Jellybean Benitez, DJ Spinna and so forth to Manhattan on a Tuesday and you could play as deep as you can get. The Tuesday nights changed its name to Feel Real in 2017. I also started doing a Wednesday called ‘Enjoy’ which was more Techno. 

But the bottom line was, I thought the important thing was to connect with Millennials and Gen Z DJs that were looking for that break. And so, between 2018 and 2019, I was booking 27 DJs a month. Guys that needed a platform that didn't have one and who loved Deep House. They didn't have an audience or they were trying to build one. In some cases, they were positive, some cases were negative but I always tried to give somebody a shot, because that's the legacy I want to leave behind. 

And it wasn't like it would have massive numbers of people. Sometimes we have 20 people, sometimes we'd have 100. But it was a collective of music lovers. I show flyers of all of the DJs that I've had, doing that style of music, because I felt that it was important. And when we go back when the COVID is over, I'm gonna go back to that. Still working with young millennial and Gen Z DJs. (So ask yourself) What are you doing to contribute to make sure that House Music reaches the next generation?

You brought out two albums last year that were phenomenal. ‘Songs you can Feel I and II’, what are you doing this year? 

Last year, I wanted to focus on the older artists; Dawn Tallman, Michelle Weeks, Inaya Day that were all on it. This year, I'm focusing on the new vocalists trying to get into the House Music game. I’ve got a new track with AMORELLE called ‘My Sweet Self’. She’s a millennial and hopefully there's gonna be a lot of producers that are gonna work with her. Now guys are starting to call her up to do songs and I welcome that because we need new voices, new younger voices that can make house music. I'm just hoping to reach the top with her. 

We need new DJs; we need new singers. We need new producers. I'm working with a young man right now. He's 28 years old. I'm helping him develop his sound. Giving him the vocal arrangements that he needs in music; to collaborate with me so that he can have an understanding of how to produce House Music properly. 

Quickfire Round

• What digital workstation do you work in? Logic 
• What's your favorite instrumental sound? Raw drums and SP1200
• Your favorite label? AMPM. Back In The Day 
• Your inspiration? God. 
• Favorite club? Red Lite Montreal
• Love is? Essential
• What are you most proud of? My daughter.
• Who gave you the best advice? My father. He said everything you do in the dark will come out to the light.
• Do you have a vinyl collection anymore? Yes, I still have some. I sold most of mine. But I still have a closet full. 

Finally, when we get back from the pandemic, you are playing at your ultimate gig, who's standing next to you? 

Five people. Paul Trouble Anderson, Camacho, Phil Asher, Mike Huckabee and Voodoo Ray.