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Prescription (record label), Chicago, US

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Prescription (record label), Chicago, US

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Prescription was a House music record label from Chicago that had a major influence on Kenny Hawkes as the style of music that the label released would go on to meld the musical style of Hawkes himself. As mentioned by his long-time collaborator, Luke Solomon in a recent article (Thomas. A. 2023), “It coincided with labels like Prescription (the label founded by Ron Trent & Chez Damier) coming out of Chicago that felt like the future of the music,” says Solomon. “And mine and Kenny’s shows on Girls FM was a platform for that kind of house music."

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Girls FM was a pirate radio station in London where Kenny Hawkes took up residency and then moved on to manage the radio station. He had decided to move from Brighton, UK, to London once he heard that Girls FM was looking for new DJ'ing talent. As noted on the Defected Records website, (defected.com, 2019), It was by chance that he stumbled across London pirate radio station Girls FM, run by a solitary DJ who was searching for talent to join him. Kenny upped and moved to London, where he really kickstarted his DJ career.

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Kenny Hawkes - DJ, Producer, Remixer, Lord of Darkness

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Kenny Hawkes - DJ, Producer, Remixer, Lord of Darkness

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I became friends with the late Kenny Hawkes around 1995 when we started running successful club nights in London and Dublin. I had known of his music on such independent record labels as Music for Freaks and Classic Music Company. His production sound was precisely what I was searching for, a heady mix of Chicago House music and Detroit techno which culminated in a very tracky/jacking sound. His expertise in layering drum loops with dark bass and soulful vocals made me really change the musical path that I was on at that time. We became very great friends and he organised my first gig in London and then future touring with him around Europe and North America on a number of occasions. His inspiring conversations with me about following my heart and not the crowd changed my life forever.

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DJ Kool Herc is known as one of the pioneers in the history of DJ culture as we know it today. The pioneer hip-hop DJs of the Bronx, such as DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaata, and Disco Wiz, used their diverse backgrounds to create a new sound from a shared experience. (Hernandez, W.I., 2015) and Herc went on to use the Technics turntable as part of his original sound system in 1973 as published on the Music Radar website in 2022, Kool Herc’s turntable of choice was the Technics SL-1100; a direct drive turntable that had been introduced by Panasonic two years earlier, in 1971. (Stokes, W., 2022). I think that Herc had an influence on Technics turntables as they then found a new target audience with specialised needs for this equipment and this then pushed Technis to become the best turntable available to the DJ, in my opinion.

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DJ culture pushed Technics turntables to construct the turntable further than it was originally conceptualized for. It was music across many genres from Hip-Hop to House which in turn would make the designers at Technics understand and take heed of the changing needs of musicians and DJs.
In my opinion, both the DJs and Technics needed to be in unison to get the best instrument possible.  For some miraculous coincidence, the first-generation SL-1200 was packed with many functions that DJs wanted, so it quickly became a standard DJ turntable. (Technics.com, 2023)

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Shuichi Obata of Technics’ parent company, Matsushita (now Panasonic)

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Shuichi Obata of Technics’ parent company, Matsushita (now Panasonic)

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In 1969, Technics’ parent company, Matsushita Electrical Industrial Limited (now Panasonic), with the assistance of engineer Shuichi Obata designed the Technics SP-10 which later as Obata refined his direct-drive technology became the first Technics 1200. It is important to note the engineer Suichi Obata as the inventor of the Technics SP-10, released in 1969, prior to the SL-1200's market dominance. (Deyn, M., 2022). I do point towards Obata having a prodigious effect on the supremacy of the Technics turntable and I agree with Jim Allen when he writes in PopularMechanics.com, It’s been 50 years since Obata developed the direct-drive turntable. Its legacy is a profound one, and versions of the first 1200 are still the instrument of choice among top DJs. (Allen, J., 2019)

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Throughout the career of Rick Rubin he has mentioned his reverence for The Beatles and how the they were his first introduction to music and music production, "For me, the Beatles are proof of the existence of God. It’s so good and so far beyond everyone else that it’s not them”. (Coffman, T. 2023). In this same article from Far Out Magazine Rubin relates to The Beatles influencing his dynamic understanding of music, Despite all of the hip-hop morphing out of jam sessions, Rubin was always focused on the power of a song, which was directly taken from The Beatles’ model. As Rubin tells it: “I think the reason I did it was really just my having grown up with the Beatles. That’s how I heard music—in a song format”. (Coffman, T. 2023)

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Russell Simmons, Co-Founder of Def Jam Records

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Russell Simmons, Co-Founder of Def Jam Records

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Rick Rubin met Russell Simmons a nightclub in Manhattan, N.Y., in 1984 and they quickly realised their future worth to each other. Michael Saponara mentions in Billboard Magazine, The duo quickly became business partners, as Russell brought Rubin into the business world of hip-hop due to his experience already managing Run DMC. (Saponara, 2018, January 2019). In my opinion this meeting was inevitably the start of Rubins' career as Def Jam records went on to release music from such illustrious acts as Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and Slayer until Rubin departed the record label in 1988. I think that without Simmons in the company it may have reduced the connection with hip-hop music that Rubin was seeking.

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Rick Rubin was 1 1 years old when The Ramones formed in 1974. As mentioned in an article titled "How The Ramones Became Punk Pioneers" (Jones, 2020) states "In 1974, four misfits formed a band whose blitzkrieg bop would make the music world sit up and listen.". Rubin has mentioned how The Ramones helped to define his early life. During this frequent alone time, an adolescent Rubin discovered punk. He has described the Ramones as integral to this experience because they created the first “full punk rock album” he heard, but they were also the first band he discovered that played fast. (Hope, R. March 2, 2023) "Who Is Rick Rubin? Is He a Hip-Hop Renegade, Creativity Catalyst or ‘Hindrance’?". soundoflife.com. https://www.soundoflife.com/blogs/people/rick-rubin-hip-hop-record-producer)

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Rick Rubin has been an influence of mine due to founding Def Jam Records at a young age, in fact he was attending university much like I am, and then went on to produce many of the artists who have in return influenced me such as Slayer, The Cult, and Rage Against The Machine. His production values and focus are more on the creativity of art and keeping it simple to utilise the artists' talents instead of over-complicating the production process. This is something that I find very inspiring as it has taught me to listen to artists in a more defined manner and to try to strip away the overuse of production effects. His recent book "The Creative Art: A Way of Being' has chapter titles such as 'Everyone is a Creator' and 'Try Everything' which resonates loudly with how I would like to move forward in the next stage of my career.

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These turntables were my musical instrument of choice.  I found that they shaped my DJing career as it was not only expected that you own at least two but that they were the only source of turntable truth and no other turntable would suffice. The accuracy of both pitch adjustment and powerful torque, the stability of the cabinet, and the direct drive system made such a difference to my abilities and confidence in beat matching and cueing. If it wasn't for Technics 1200 and 1210 models, I think that I would not have had the confidence to perform in front of thousands of people over my formative DJing years.

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Luke Solomon, DJ, Record Producer, Record Label Owner

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Luke Solomon, DJ, Record Producer, Record Label Owner

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The connection and influence between Kenny Hawkes and Luke Solomon relates back to their times working together through a shared love of the same music, running club nights, and producing a radio show together. They worked together for many years and as stated in an interview with Solomon by (Giurgi, S.L. 2013) Kenny and Luke had, together, helped define the UK’s underground house music scene in the 1990s with their weekly shindig, Space. Held every Wednesday night — from 1995 to 2002 — at basement venue Bar Rumba, on London’s Shaftesbury Avenue, Space was the subterranean, house music fan’s mid-week mecca.