DJ/ Producer K Alexi

heygoergeous! will be celebrating their first year at the Tabernacle, London EC2 and then @ Pacha in the funky room for a full on after party...

To help celebrate the team behind heygorgeous! wanted someone special to come and play... a true inspiration of house music.. and through our network of friends we found just the person!

and heres why ....

DJ and producer K Alexi is one of Chicago's unsung heroes and cited by many as a pioneer the city's sound. At a young age of 12, K was already moving in the right circles befriending worldwide legends like Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy whilst frequenting the famous Warehouse. K's upbringing in Chicago in the 70's and 80's meant he was exposed to a range of genres and different styles of music including Stevie Wonder, Prince, Curtis Mayfield and David Huff - these same names would prove to be the roots of influence. K's first pressing 'Essence of a Dream' is still regarded a classic today.

A tally of successful hit records, remixing and collaborating with other artists resulted in his talents being sought by a diverse range of artists like The Pet Shop Boys, Derrick May, Paul Johnson, Mr Lee (who produces for R Kelly), Larry Heard & Robert Owens, Dave Angel, Felix Da Housecat and Will Smith. Just as notorious for his DJing ability Mr Alexi has played at just about every exotic location imaginable as well as here in the UK, his smooth blend of house, disco and soul never fails to excite and win over the crowd.

With K's ability to produce quality tunes consistently it was high time he pooled all his know-how and enthusiasm for the forming of his new record labels. "I'm just expecting to shine and really do my thing this time, I've finally set up a label where before I was A&Ring for other labels, now it's all me, what I say is hot and yeah we are going to put it out, if someone else doesn't like it, well that's just too bad. With this responsibility I hope to just bring some new stuff and freshness to the game."

The labels' will showcase two tiers of artists, established producers including K and fellow scene veterans from the 'windy city'. The next tier will consist of the new breed that K wants to nurture; artists here include DJ Rome, Matt Hughes, Hugo H, Gant Man and Canine. We can't reveal the established names at the moment but knowing K's connections you know there's going to be at least a few gems in the pipeline. The two labels' have been branded '312' after Chicago's telephone area code and 'Track Bandits', a naughty sketch that we'll leave to your imagination.

Having a very illustrious career as both a DJ and producer I was interested to see what K cites as the high points? "I've done stuff that I didn't think would take me down certain paths like as far as even trying hip hop to reggae tracks to even doing remixes for some r&b cats and even pop people too. People like Backstreet, Foxy Brown, Ginuwine, Case and just to be asked to play on some of them other projects were cool." For K it's not a case of strictly 'house music all night long'. "I'm usually in the back room at a place called the 'Prop House' listening to hip hop because when I'm out I like to listen to something different - that balances me out. I don't want to be just saturated twenty four seven, I need to listen to something different to bring something back to what I do."

Raised in exciting times, musically, in a culturally rich city K tells me the origins of his music career. "Man that was like the early eighties, that whole breakdance deal, but I just felt too tall to do some of the moves so I thought I'm just going to play the DJ and at that point the DJ was not the man but I still wanted to be part of the whole deal. My family was down with that because they're all famous people, singers and all. There's Mr Lee who's produced a lot of the early R Kelly stuff, Will Smith and a lot of people like that. He helped me get started and showed me that it really could be done. I was going out to a bunch of clubs that I was definitely too young to get in to but because I was doing my thing making music."

K's cousin Mr Lee helped give him the determination and encouragement in the early days. "I could hear the r&b element in us being together but I wanted to be more gritty, more underground, more hard-edged and he was like more pop so I pursued my own ideas and stuff. I was doing tracks at 127 way before 127 bpm was even fashionable, I was going fast way before fast was even cool and a whole bunch of times I was having the likes of Tyree Cooper and Fast Eddie saying 'K your tracks are cool but they're too fast' and what I told them was 'yeah they maybe fast but my stuff will still be played years from now because times are going fast and so must these tracks. My stuff will still be getting played while your stuff is cool but won't be getting played unless you go through that whole remix thing'".

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