The Soul Mixer: In a Career Kick-Started by Acid House & Coronated with a Grammy, Maurice Joshua Has Found His Niche — To Bring Back the Soul to Clubland

By Jim Tremayne
Published in the August 2005 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 18 - Number 08

Chicago—Despite nearly 20 years in the music business, Maurice Joshua is anything but jaded. The native Chicagoan was a part of one of the most fruitful American club music scenes ever—the very city that gave us house music. He produced dance hits on both sides of the Atlantic, DJed at the world’s most spectacular venues, remixed the biggest stars in pop music. He’s experienced the industry’s most dramatic ebbs and flows. But when discussion arrives at the Grammy Award he won in 2004, Joshua becomes a big puppy.

“It’s all love,” he says of the trophy he took for his remix of “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z. “At the end of the day, it’s what you receive. It’s something that was accomplished.”

Then, for clarity, he adds: “In the dance community, there’s always a lot of talk about how this guy won or that guy won the remix category. And then, some people act like it’s not a big deal. If anyone says that winning a Grammy doesn’t mean anything, they’re full of it.”

Sure, “Crazy in Love” was a big record, especially in the more urban-oriented clubs. But for the 36-year-old Joshua, if nothing else, the award represents recognition for a career of hard work and genuine achievement. He knows that earning a Grammy is like a gridiron star winning the Heisman Trophy, an actor taking the Oscar, a prize fighter becoming champion. It will be the headline on your obituary, the conversation your grandkids have—it’s something that can never be taken away from you.

Joshua has certainly put in the years to arrive at this rare place. It’s certainly a long way between “Crazy in Love” and his 1989 breakout club hit “This Is Acid,” which thrust him into the emerging global house culture. Like any smart and talented DJ/producer, Joshua parlayed that early success into bigger things by hopping the remixer gravy train of the 1990s. His discography is probably deeper than any remixer you can name—well, anyone who isn’t affiliated with Def Mix Productions. It includes mixes for enormo-pop stars (Janet and Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston), multi-platinum R&B stars (Destiny’s Child, Mary J. Blige, a solo Beyoncé), hitmaking club artists (Martha Wash, The Shamen, Kim English) and newer, post-Y2K stars (Pink, Anastacia, John Legend).

For remixers in recent years, the business has become dramatically different with developments that include the re-alignment of record labels, the dearth of fat remix budgets and the rise of the spec mix (do the remix for free, see if it gets accepted by the label or artist, get paid later). But Joshua has staked himself a sweet piece of the pie. When a label wants to take an R&B or hip-hop track to the dancefloor, they call Joshua. The “Maurice Soul Mix” is now a staple of the industry.

Like many mixers, Joshua’s skills are rooted in the DJ booth. He learned what moves a crowd years ago as a mobile jock and transferred those lessons to the club. These days, he plays to crowds that enjoy hip-hop, R&B and house, which, of course, informs his mixes. It’s a useful circle because, unlike many hardcore electronic-dance producers, Joshua loves clubland’s soulful side and adores the sounds created by many of the more successful urban producers—Kanye West, The Neptunes, Timbaland. Joshua’s been to the acid house, now he wants to keep clubland sanctified with what he calls Nu Soul (hence, the name of his label).

On that note, Joshua’s latest artist album, The Grand Opening (Biggest Hits/Nu Soul), is more of a lush affair with ultra-smooth vocal tracks like “Sober” (featuring Digital Black) and effortlessly effective deep-housers like “Bring Back the Soul.” His 2006 follow-up expects to be a more uptempo R&B/dance vibe. We caught up with Maurice Joshua in between projects in his Chicago studio to discuss DJing, remixing, gear and just how sweet it is to win a Grammy.

DJ Times: What got you into DJing?
Maurice Joshua: My brother Xavier. He was good friends with Frankie Knuckles, and he used to go see him spin at the Warehouse and the Power Plant here in Chicago. [Ed. Note: Knuckles’ residencies at those venues ran consecutively from 1977-1986.] I used to see him and his friends getting dressed at 10 and not come back until 10 in the morning the next day. I was really intrigued about that.

DJ Times: How did he help you DJ?
Joshua: He locked me in a room and I’d practice every day after school. He had an old Numark 1950 mixer and the Technics SLB-1 turntables and the Cerwin-Vega speakers—just the typical setup. I remember some of the first records I was spinning, like ABC’s “The Look of Love.” That’s what I was practicing with back in 1981, 1982.

DJ Times: Was there a DJ who inspired you?
Joshua: Here in Chicago, we had the Hot Mix 5 on the radio every day, every weekend. [Ed. Note: The original WBMX crew was Farley “Jackmaster” Funk, Mickey “Mixin’” Oliver, Scott “Smokin’” Silz, Ralphi Rosario and Kenny “Jammin’” Jason.] The one who really caught my ear was Farley “Jackmaster” Funk. He started to scratch on the air. Some of the stuff that he was doing trick-wise was really cool, too, because nobody was doing that at the time. He was scratching, double-scratching, doing some triples—that was really new on the radio. So it was exciting to hear what he was going to do next and what new songs he would play, the songs that people didn’t have yet. Those songs would be in the store that coming week after he played it. All the Hot Mix 5 got you excited because they had all the newest music.

DJ Times: What about in the clubs?
Joshua: Here in Chicago, it was definitely Frankie [Knuckles] because he was big in the 1980s. Also, Steve “Silk” Hurley was definitely my mentor. He incorporated some of the live instruments, like bringing in the drum machine and playing that with some of the tracks. Those two were a big influence on me coming up.

DJ Times: Outside of Chicago, what were you hearing? Apart from the acid house stuff, a lot of the local sound was soulful music that was connected to the disco era.
Joshua: We had a lot of influence from the UK and Italy. Things like Klein & MBO and stuff like that influenced us to make tracks like that, but we also took from the old disco songs and played the bassline over and recreated some things. So that was our vibe to it. That’s what we took from it, but we also incorporated the electronic drums to it. When we first heard it, everything just sounded so good and so fresh. It was new, exciting, refreshing, a change of pace of what you usually hear.

DJ Times: When did you realize this was becoming a culture? When did you notice that this had become a ritual?
Joshua: It was really when we started to travel and people would know who you were and know your music. It really caught my eye back in 1988 and 1989 with our record “This Is Acid” and the record blew up with a Les Adams remix and somebody called us to do a performance show. That’s when we were like, “This thing is gonna be huge.” We didn’t even know we were gonna be doing shows. This was a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Our first gig was in New York at the Post Office. That’s when we knew house music was gonna be big. We used to travel to New York every other week—The Tunnel, The Red Zone, Palladium, all that.

DJ Times: Back then, there was more of a mixture of genres. You’d hear hip-hop and house in the same club.
Joshua: Sure, back then, you’d see all the hip-hop heads inside dancing to house music. You’d see Run-DMC, Queen Latifah—they were at our shows. They knew the dance music.

DJ Times: Are you surprised house music became a culture unto itself?
Joshua: I knew it was going to have some lasting impact, but the thing is it’s gotten to the point that there are so many genres of dance music now that it’s hurting house music. It’s not like you have so many different categories of rap, where it’s so watered-down now. Back in the day, no matter what, you’d go to The Tunnel and Johnny Dynell or David Morales would play R&B with the house music—and everybody would be having a good time. Of course, when I was in New York, the Red Zone was my spot. It was a mixed crowd and everyone was having a great time.

DJ Times: In New York, it seems like the deep-house parties attract the same few hundred extremely dedicated people. The big crowds seem to go for the more progressive or tribal stuff. What’s it like in Chicago now?
Joshua: Same here. In Chicago, hip hop got to the point where it became the pop music. You had to play hip hop no matter where you were. Right now, you’ve got a lot of people playing the older-school music, old Chicago house. It’s coming back. People like Farley are doing big parties and some of the old cats are coming back out. There’s a resurgence of the old music again, but I’m trying to tell everybody that there’s only so much of the old music that you can play, and there’s so much new music—you gotta incorporate both of them. People have to be educated on what is the good house music today.

DJ Times: How often do you DJ now?
Joshua: I was DJing three nights a week out here in Chicago, but I’m focusing more on my production and writing right now. I’m doing some guest spots back and forth at different clubs.

DJ Times: What’s in your perfect DJ booth?
Joshua: Woo! It’s going to have to be a booth that’s high off the floor so I don’t have to hear any requests [laughs]. My perfect DJ booth has two or three Technics 1200s. Since the CD craze, we gotta have the Technics [SL-DZ1200] or the Pioneer CDJ-1000s. I like ’em both. It’s not a preference for me. Either one, I can use because they’re both great. I like the Urei. It’s a great mixer and it’s coming back. I like that and I also like the Pioneer DJM-600 with the effects. If you’re doing hip hop—and I play hip hop, too, now—I can play both genres real well. It’s a useful mixer and a great mixer.

DJ Times: Phono cartridges and headphones?
Joshua: I still love the old-school Stantons—they’re definitely great cartridges. But I also use the Ortofons, the blue ones. For headphones, I use the Sony [MDR-V700DJ], but we’ve also made our own lollipop-style headphones. But if I’m playing hip hop, I definitely use the Sony headphones.

DJ Times: In a perfect world, what other amenities?
Joshua: The perfect booth was at the Sound Factory Bar—they had the bathroom in the back, the little lounge area. It was the perfect booth—that’s how they should be set up.

DJ Times: So if you’re playing house with the hip hop, how do you mix it up?
Joshua: A lot of cats don’t DJ as long as I do, because I’ll do a night from 10 to 5. In a lot of the modern clubs, the people want to hear hip hop in the beginning, then you can switch it back to dance music. You definitely play the hits. You’ve got people who are educated, but the vast majority of the crowd wants to hear what they hear on the radio. This is how I do it: If you play the house remixes of Destiny’s Child or Beyoncé, they’re familiar with it. You can grab them because they know the vocal part. Then you can go ahead and throw in some record that they probably wouldn’t know—because by that time they’re probably drunk already [laughs]. They’ll stay on the floor.

DJ Times: Having a deep background in musical styles also helps.
Joshua: Yeah, DJs have to stay educated. They gotta know all their music. Before, every jock knew every song that was out now. Now, if you’re a trance jock or progressive or tech-house, that’s all they play and they don’t know anything else. When I was younger, I used to be like that. I’m still here to educate and please somebody, but I’m here for everybody to have a good time. I want to be a crowd-pleaser, so I play stuff for the crowd. But I also want to play the hot new product that’s coming out now, too.

DJ Times: For the dancefloor, the hip-hop producers are more interesting than ever now.
Joshua: Yeah, there are a lot of hip-hop producers that make a lot of dance records. Timbaland, Neptunes, Kanye West, Rich Harrison—they’re all up on it because they’re in the club a lot. They take a lot of the dance elements and put it into hip hop, and it’s working—especially Timbaland and The Neptunes.

DJ Times: Let’s go back to the “This Is Acid” days for a minute. That’s a record that I always like hearing. Even the first notes of that track still get people going. How did that happen?
Joshua: It was me and my partner Hot Hands Hula at the time and we did an EP for Trax Records. That was our first record. We went in the studio and we really just had to do one track, but we did three. “This Is Acid” was the B-side for a song called “I Got a Big Dick.” Hula came up with the concept with the lyrics. We had the TB-303 on there. We did it all in about 20, 25 minutes. We put it out, but the A-side got all the buzz. Then Les Adams did a remix. He got a hold of the a cappella and flipped it and did a 360-degree turnaround. It was called “This Is Acid,” but it didn’t have any acid in it [laughs]. At the time, Todd Terry was big with “A Day in My Life” sound, so it was like, “Hey, they took some of the Todd Terry stuff, flipped it and re-did it.” All of a sudden, it was a new dance craze.

DJ Times: You did some DJ-mix compilations for the Trax 20th anniversary last year. That put some of your work and the sounds of the early Chicago scene back into the forefront—Mr. Fingers, Adonis, Jamie Principle. Some people really got a chance to rediscover this sound.
Joshua: That’s a great thing. That’s why I did it. You gotta go back there and teach these young kids. I ask some of them if they’ve ever heard of me and my music. It’s not about my ego, I just want to know what they’re listening to now. You gotta stay abreast of these young kids now. I put some stuff out on Henry Street, too, but under a different moniker. It’s a different name, but when people hear it, they’ll know it’s me.

DJ Times: Production and remixing have changed dramatically since the old days. What has your studio evolution been like?
Joshua: It used to be all modules. I’m a gear freak, but now to be up with the times and to have portability, I use the computer. I have kids now, so it’s not like I can spend that much time in my main studio, so I do a lot of stuff at home on the laptop. My main software program is Logic 7. They have [plug-ins] that can simulate all the old analog instruments. You pull it up—pop!—and you can get a thousands sounds out of it. It’s just easy now. Native Instruments’ Electric Piano is definitely one of my favorites. I also use Native Instruments’ Battery a lot—you can put in all your drum sounds in there. All the plug-ins in Logic are wonderful. On a lot of the mixes, you can’t tell the difference. I use a lot of the ES24 sampler—you can load everything in there. You put in all your drums and keymap automatically—it’s all love. I’ve got 6,000 or 7,000 samples of drum sounds in there. And I can bring up any one of them that I want with the ES24.

DJ Times: What about old-school outboard gear?
Joshua: I use some of the old Neve pre-amps sometimes. I run some of my final mixes through that to give it warmth. I just don’t like to run everything through the computer because it lacks warmth. But I run the whole mix through the Neve console and—voila!—there you have it. It’s actually an Amek 9098.

DJ Times: Regarding sound, how much do you think the audience notices these days?
Joshua: A lot of these people who listen to this music in the clubs really don’t care how things sound anymore, which is the saddest thing. But people who enjoy quality can tell, but a lot of these kids coming up don’t know the different between an MP3 or an AIFF file. It’s just like why I like vinyl so much—nothing can sound that good.

DJ Times: Regarding the remix process, how do you best transition an R&B tune into a house mix?
Joshua: If I’m working on a Beyoncé or a Destiny’s Child—those kinds of mixes—I want to keep it similar to what people know. Especially at the clubs I play, they know all the R&B tunes—they just want it danceable. So I don’t like to take it too far out of the normal range. I want to keep it soulful, like the way the original producer created it, unless the label wants something out of the ordinary. I did a couple dubs like that. Mainly, a lot of these artists listen to the mixes and they give the OK to it.

DJ Times: How did you approach the song that won you the Grammy, “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé?
Joshua: I got the single before everyone and I was impressed. I just said, “Wow, man…” I like how [original producer] Rich Harrison took a sample [horns from The Chi-Lites’ “Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)”] and just repeated it and stretched it. That really got me intrigued because I did a vibe with the same sample stretched. It came out perfectly, but they never put it out. It was on Promo Only, but it was never really released by Sony. It was a sample-clearance problem. It came out good. I just knew that the sample could work sped-up if you worked it the right way. I even had some horn players re-play the horn stabs.

DJ Times: Were you surprised how well it did?
Joshua: I didn’t really know that it would be that big. It was a stroke of luck. That record was everywhere.

DJ Times: What did winning the Grammy mean for you? It must’ve felt good to have so many years in the industry rewarded.
Joshua: And it did. At the end of the day, it’s what you receive. It’s something that was accomplished. If anyone says that winning a Grammy doesn’t mean anything, they’re full of it. It was a big record—no doubt about it. A lot of people play that record—here in Chicago and a lot of other clubs in other cities I go to. It was a wonderful feeling. And a lot of good things have happened since then, from production to remixing opportunities.

DJ Times: What’s the remix process for you these days, now that most labels don’t have the kind of dance departments that they once had?
Joshua: There are a lot of remixers out there now, so the main thing that has changed is the spec mix—people doing it for free before [the mix is] accepted by the label [and paid for]. Now all the A&R people are hip to it. It’s not a problem, but you gotta wait until people accept it. For me, it’s like, “OK, I’ll do it like this, but this is my price. So don’t come back and trip out if you want to do it because this is my price.” Some people get hesitant, but with some songs I’ll make the call myself because I like the song and I just love doing it.

DJ Times: What advice would you have for remixer/producers who are coming up now?
Joshua: Know their music, at least have some music background. Playing an instrument helps because a lot of times I’ve heard mixes where people had some key changes that didn’t fit with the record. And that’s just me being picky. I know times have changed, but I’ve been in music a long time, so you still have to be on-point for the artist’s sake.

DJ Times: What was your instrument?
Joshua: I started with a clarinet, then I went to tuba and percussion. Now I’m a keyboard player. Ain’t that something?

DJ Times: A lot of DJ/remixers can assemble sound without having any traditional training.
Joshua: Sometimes it works well like that, depending on who the DJ is. It works because they have the vision of it.

DJ Times: And what advice for DJs?
Joshua: Again, just know your music. Educate the crowd some. Don’t just be stuck in one genre. When I grew up, I listened to rock, jazz, everything. I started out as a mobile DJ, where I did a lot of weddings, a lot of banquets, but I learned that you have to know your music. Every wedding is not the same. Every wedding is not an African-American wedding. Every wedding is not a white wedding. You might have a mixed wedding. You definitely have to know your music. You have to know what’s hot out there for the masses.

DJ Times: What was your approach to your latest album, The Grand Opening?
Joshua: I wanted to come with a concept of a truly soulful lounge CD with original music. I go everywhere, and a lot of people have a lot of lounge CDs out and they’re called soulful. But, to me, they’re not really soulful, not something that you can play in a restaurant or a lounge and create a vibe without it being too hard.

DJ Times: It sounds like a real easy transition for you.
Joshua: That soulful vibe is always in me. I can do a lot of things, but I always seem to come to that, man. It’s just me. I love all the progressive stuff, too, and I can do some of it. But soulful music is where my heart is. Earth, Wind and Fire was one of the main influences for me. My brother had the records and I listened to every one of them. He took me to see them and it was my first concert. It’s still an influence.

DJ Times: What was it about the soul music of the 1970s—whether it was Earth Wind and Fire or The O’Jays or whoever—that makes it so memorable and lasting?
Joshua: It’s all about the songwriting. People forget about that. Songwriting today can be one-dimensional—talking about sex, clubs, whatever—but they don’t always tell you a story, like a lot of these old songs used to tell you. That’s the key thing. But some of it is going back to that. On the hip-hop side, you’ve got The Neptunes. On the house side, you’ve got Louie Vega doing the soulful stuff with vocals. Byron Stingily is still doing soulful vocals like that. Once you have a great song, it’ll stand the test of time.