As a third wave musician with a long musical background, its safe to say that Jay Denham has been around the block a few times. At fifteen, he picked up his first instrument, a bass guitar, and by the time he was seventeen was playing in a rock band for friends at parties. He developed a taste for punk and what Americans refer to as "new wave", moving on to the funk of Parliament, Cameo and The Time as the eighties arrived.
In 1982 he came across a Chicago Hot Mix tape, which opened his ears to the then revolutionary sounds of Farley Jackmaster Funk and Frankie Knuckles. Immediately blown away by this new sound, he took to making expeditions to the Windy City to find records and tape the local radio shows he couldn't pick up in his home town of Kalamazoo. A chance meeting in Chicago with early house producer Chip E implanted the idea that he might actually try making this music himself....
The next step came for Jay was when he was at a local club he met up with Shake aka Anthony Shakir of Frictional records. Shortly after Shakir brought over his keyboard to jays house and with a drum machine jay had, it wasn't long before they were jamming together on early tracks. When Shakir got to know Derrick May he passed him some of Jays' tapes. Mays' favourable reaction led to Jay moving to detroit after he felt like it was the place for him to grow as a artist which led to him working derrick mays Transmat label, and releasing his first records: "Ritual" as Vice on the Techno 2 LP and then the mythic 12" "Insync" as Fade II Black.
Jay Denham dj ing highlights include Mayday, Sonar in Barcelona (June 1998), and appearances in Germany, Ausrtia, England, Scotland, France, Italy, Japan, awakenings (holland), inner city (holland) and many other countries, clubs and venues. Denham has gained world wide fame for playing a mixture of hard and funky techno while utilizing three turntables. And over the years Denham has continues to be one of the most sought after djs and producers in the world. Recording releases like "In Synch EP" as Vice on Fragile Records (the sub-label of Detroit s renowned Transmat label) during the early 9
s, he has also recorded material for 43
West, did remix work for Kevin Saunderson at KMS, and appeared on the famed "Techno II" Detroit Techno compilation on virgin/1
records. After a living in Detroit for three years, Denham returned to his hometown of Kalamazoo in 1992 where he developed the black nation sound
After moving back to Kalamazoo, Jay continued to quietly developed his sound, working with local producers and dj's, and amassing a stack of tracks, despite the fact that he had no-one to release them. Late in 1994 jay took the plunge himself and started his own label, Black Nation, beginning with the "Birth of a Nation" EP (also the title of an infamous early 2
th Century Ku Klux Klan propaganda movie, fact fans) whjich features tracks by himself and friends like Fanon Flowers, Tony Ollie, Brett Dance and Chance McDermott and a philospohy to produce "funky, rhythmic, driving underground grooves for the funk conscious record buyer". Black Nation Records has gone on to become one of the best and most consistent underground labels around.
In early 1996, his "Day of Atonement" and "Playerhater" releases as Blackman and Vice, respectively, caught the notice of techno fans, and Black Nation quickly gained notoriety for it s high quality releases. In addition to Black Nation, he also released records on such famed techno labels as Tresor, Sativae, Fragmented, Cloned Vinyl, Fragile, and Cosmic. In 1998, he released his first album "Escape to the Black Planet" on Germany s Disko B records. This was followed by 1999 with the classic "Synthesized Society" album, also released on Disko B with the hit track "pride(it's time) which defined jay's musical versatility . The year 2
saw the debut of Slavery 2
and Sector 616, Jay s new sublabels for Black Nation.
With 17 years since his first release, Jay Denham is back with a new attitude and some of the freshest, fiercest grooves, with the release of his third album "the truth" with collaboration's with anthony "shake" shakir and roberto ingram. This new album will show case jay's diverse sound. Not only can jay bang out the techno but also produce future classics hit's like "electro static" and p-funk techno track the "truth" to hip-hop track "the word is a ghetto". Jay has taken some time of from his heavy dj ing schedule to focus on productions and remix duties over the years. With this focus, he will once again define techno to a new generation, with the planned relaunch of his black nation label later this year with collaborations with other top producers. Jay and black nation records plan to take funky techno to a new hights.