Green Velvet @ Drumsheds, London

Green Velvet plays a DJ set from the Defected party at Drumsheds, London.

Green Velvet has been intrinsically linked with house music almost since the start. Like all good stories, there have been many different chapters to the Chicagoan’s journey, each as important as the next. From seminal dance anthems to influential record labels, electrifying DJ sets to his iconic green flash of hair, he has always stood out from the crowd and is a deserving winner of our Outstanding Contribution award for 2024.

Depending on your age, you will know Curtis Alan Jones either as a freaky cyber-punk with a penchant for dark but tongue-in-cheek house anthems or as a more serious and mindful preacher who champions a religious way of life. He is one of the early pioneers whose Cajual and Relief labels were some of the most prominent and prolific in all of Chicago in the early ‘90s. They helped usher in a new wave sound after the early blueprint of Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy and the acid of Phuture. His style was to strip things back to a mean and kicking sound that laid some of the foundations for the later emergence of sub-genres like juke and footwork.

Initially, it was harder grooves that came on Cajual and more tracky fare arriving via Relief, with now household names like Boo Williams, Glenn Underground, Gemini and DJ Sneak all going on to become stars in their own right after early releases on the label. Of course, Jones’s own productions were right at the heart of the scene back then, not least the generational classic ‘La La Land’. It was originally written as a wake-up call for a friend who was doing too many drugs, but pill-munching clubbers worldwide adopted it as their own.

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Other hits such as ‘Answering Machine’ and ‘Flash’ brought Jones more acclaim, but you won't find him playing the first of those nowadays on account of its gratuitous swearing. Now a practising Christian, he has gone on record before as saying that he prefers to spread more positive messages. Religion often informed his work even back at the start, with tracks like the 1998 classic ‘Preacher Man’ hitting hard with its raw drums, but also featuring an extract of a sermon by Baptist preacher Reverend CL Franklin.

Rather than slip into the role of a heritage act playing the hits, Green Velvet has remained relevant by hooking up with several contemporary artists over the years. There have been tracks and US tours with DirtyBird boss Claude von Stroke as Get Real, he has dropped hits with Sonny Fodera, and put out several singles with Eats Everything, HI-LO and, most often, Patrick Topping, including enduring gems like ‘Voicemail’ and most recently ‘Mad Motion’.

In 2022 he sat alongside fellow Chicago titans Honey Dijon and Terry Hunter and brought real authenticity to Beyoncé’s GRAMMY-winning and house-infused album ‘RENAISSANCE’ by providing a sample for ‘Cozy’. His love of a bold and provocative vocal hasn't diminished either, with tracks like ‘Sheeple’ alongside Prok & Fitch musing on mind control, government interference and the rise of technology.

Importantly, Jones has never lost his edge in the DJ booth: to hear him play is to be dialled into a twisted soundtrack designed for maximum impact, be that with loopy house vocals or more dark and instrumental techno. He continues to play many of the world’s biggest stages but also takes his La La Land Experience to packed out crowds everywhere from Miami Music Week to Printworks in London. With credentials like these, Green Velvet's impact on the evolution of our scene cannot be compared.

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