There are few names in dance music today which need less of an introduction than Masters At Work. The duo of Louie Vega and Kenny Dope have forged a reputation for genre-eschewing DJ sets and flawless house production during careers which have spanned three decades and seen hundreds of releases and remixes. Their influence and reach changed house forever. Taking the distinct and already highly praised production aesthetic of Vega and fusing it with Gonzalez's encyclopaedic knowledge of Breaks and Hip-Hop, Masters At Work created an accessible yet defiantly underground sound that is still being copied and referenced – but crucially never bettered – by many of today’s contemporary producers. 

The love and affection that MAW productions evoke is no fluke or accident. Their sound was born out of New York. Growing up in the city when Disco was at its peak, and then seeing the emergence of House and Hip-Hop in their home city, the pair managed to amalgamate that mix – along with a healthy dollop of Latin styles and Jazz - to create records which not only defined their era, but also gave a hat tip to the masters who came before them and set a template for those still to come. 

The pair became what we now know as Masters At Work in 1990 after hooking up via an introduction from legendary House producer and DJ Todd Terry. Terry was actually the first artist to record under the Masters At Work moniker - Dope loaned him the name for his ‘Alright, Alright’ and ‘Dum Dum Cry’ records - and with Terry's help, Vega sought out Dope and then the pair began to work together, bonding over their love of music. 

They were already respected artists and DJs in their own right before Masters At Work  formed. Vega was born in the Bronx in 1965, growing up on Stratford Avenue, where he was exposed to the work of DJs like David Mancuso, Nicky Siano & later Larry Levan by his sisters who would go to clubs such as The Loft, Studio 54 and the Paradise Garage and then play cassette tapes made by their neighbourhood DJ friends influenced by that sound for their younger brother. It wasn't long before Vega caught the Disco bug and by the time he was in his early teens was already starting to DJ at high school parties and roller discos; playing Break Beats and Disco in his Bronx neighbourhood. It was there he heard the Hip-Hop of Afrika Bambaataa, Red Alert, Afrika Islam and his favourite DJ Jazzy Jay – who took him under his wing – when the quintet threw parties in the projects. Soon he was attending legendary nights at venues such as the Paradise Garage, watching DJs like Larry Levan sow the seeds of what would blossom into House Music. He still remembers walking up the huge ramp to the venue as a 15-year-old (his sisters knew a bouncer) before going inside and hearing Levan spin records by Sylvester, Chicago's ‘Street Player’ (which would later be sampled in Dope’s smash with the Bucketheads' ‘The Bomb’) and Candido's 'Thousand Fingered Man'. Soon after, he began DJing in The Bronx and Manhattan at clubs such as Devil's Nest, Heartthrob and Studio 54. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of New York, in Brooklyn, Dope was becoming addicted to the nascent Hip-Hop scene emerging in the city and being beamed over, mainly, from Vega's borough: the Bronx.  Like Vega, Dope began DJing himself in the mid-80s (which is when he invented the name Masters At Work with Mike Delgado & Franklyn Martinez for his parties) and also worked as a buyer for a record shop. He became friends with Todd Terry and would watch as he assembled his tracks before beginning to make music of his own in 1987. It was a natural progression for the crate-digging 45 fan – it's an obsession he carries on to this day with his Kay Dee Records imprint which reissue’s & sells 45’s – who began to make his own interludes and medleys of club favourites. One of his records, ‘A Touch of Salsa’, caught Vega's attention who tracked down the Brooklynite initially for a remix, before inviting him to work alongside him on his Atlantic Records album project with the then emerging Latin star Marc Anthony.

When the Masters At Work got together to work on their own tracks their mutual taste for blending and melding different styles was evident on one of their first releases on Cutting Records; ‘Blood Vibes’, which mixed Junior Reed's classic reggae cut ‘One Blood’ with MC Shan's ‘The Bridge’. These influences came from Vega's famed sets at Roseland and Studio 54 where he combined Hip Hop and Reggae alongside early House and Freestyle music. On the other side was ‘The Ha Dance’ which became a staple of the voguing or ballroom scene in New York, and, in fact, is still sampled to this day by the new generation of ballroom producers like Mike Q.

It was an auspicious start for the pair, setting their standards sky high, as well as being a precursor for how influential their style would become.

From the late 80s to the mid-90s the pair were prolific. They worked back-to-back 16-hour days for months at a time, turning out remixes (better known as 'Masters at Work Dubs') for a slew of big name artists including: Madonna, 80s pop starlet Debbie Gibson, Chic and Saint Etienne to name but a few.  As a testament to the quality of those productions – which often completely re-imagined the original – big name New York DJs such as Frankie Knuckles, Tony Humphries and Junior Vasquez would play them alongside the upfront underground cuts of the day.

After a run of singles, dubs and worldwide DJ bookings, the pair created their first album for Cutting Records (titled ‘The Album’) in 1993, which was a collection of some of their best work to date. In the same year they took their interest in the musical melting pot aesthetic to its natural conclusion and started work on their Nuyorican Soul project, delivering one of their most well-known tracks ‘The Nervous Track’ on Nervous Records. It turned out to be one of their most love productions. 

DJ Sneak remembers the impact it had at the time: “The album broke new ground, merged styles and teamed up musicians to create an amazing “picasso" of a house record. Every song was a bomb and being Puerto Rican I was very proud to have Latinos in the spotlight for great work. It's a masterpiece.” For contemporary party starters Soul Clap it was an epiphany: “At the time it showed me that the Jazz music I grew up playing and the dance music I was falling in love with could go hand in hand….and they did it by including legends of music in a style that still sounds fresh today.”

With contributions from Jazz greats Roy Ayers and George Benson, former Paradise Garage vocalist Jocelyn Brown, and Freestyle – house diva India, plus Latin greats Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri, the Nuyorican Soul album came out in 1997 after Gilles Peterson signed it to his Talkin' Loud label and was a heady mix of Puerto Rican sounds, Soul and their hometown's attitude. That success came after big releases on Strictly Rhythm, with records like Barbara Tucker’s ‘Beautiful People’ and River Ocean's ‘Love & Happiness’. 

The 90’s were a golden period for Masters at Work, spear heading a distinctive New York House sound which resonated from the DJ booth at Louie’s Undergound Network parties at the Sound Factory Bar. The Wednesday night residency in the heart of midtown Manhattan hosted by Barbara Tucker and Don Welch was the melting pot of House creativity and the watering hole of choice for young DJs and producers who would go onto help define a sound, era and genre. Armand Van Heldon, MK, Eric Morillo, Roger Sanchez and David Morales would rub shoulders with Gladys Pizarro and Mark Finklestien of Strictly Rhythm and Michael Weiss of Nervous Records. Records were broken and championed to the ever faithful crowd with Kenny & Louie using the night to road test, tweak and perfect their productions and their techniques. 

With the ever growing support more success followed with MAW Feat. India's ‘To Be In Love’ (1997), the aforementioned ‘The Bomb’ which propelled the MAW sound into the charts, plus their ten year retrospective on BBE records and Vega's remix of Kings Of Tomorrow's ‘Finally’ (2001) while the pair continued to work on the MAW label, which they set up in 1995. They released another studio album, 2001’s ‘Our Time Is Coming’, before concentrating on their solo endeavours, with Dope setting up his Kay Dee imprint and Vega winning a Grammy (MAW have been nominated three times and Vega twice) for his mix of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Superfly’ in 2006, as well as his residency at Roots NYC at Cielo, New York City. Then In 2007, Vega was invited by Cirque de Soleil to perform at the Super Bowl with his band Elements Of Life. The show was watched by 70,000 people at Dolphin Stadium in Florida and more than 145 million viewers around the world, marking yet another stunning achievement in a career already littered with them. 

The last few years have seen Vega continue his heady parties at the Miami Winter Music Conference, Sunset Ritual events (alongside DJ / Artist Anane Vega) with their DJ residencies at beach club parties, touring with his Elements Of Life Band Live Worldwide, while the pair (MAW) have reunited recently to work on new material and complete DJ dates (at various special events: Carl Cox's birthday at Space Ibiza, Rock In Rio & Lisbon and Defected Records parties at Ministry Of Sound London, Booom Ibiza and a special Boiler Room Set in August 2014). Kenny & Louie have been building their solo catalogues on Kay Dee / Dope Wax, and Vega Records to over 100 + titles each, keeping their sound current and innovative as only Masters At Work can do. As well as all that, the pair have juggled running their merchandise and clothing lines and their respective publishing companies. The timing couldn't be more apt during a period which is being dominated by 'deep house', a genre Masters At Work were at the forefront of when it first emerged in the mid-90s. But to tie them to one sound would be far too simplistic. Masters At Work have always operated according to their own rules and their own sound. Whether it's the sampling techniques of hip-hop, the swing of Latin and jazz styles or the soulful euphoria and minimal sounds of deep house – they've always added their own special ingredients, which is what makes Masters At Work genuine dance music legends.

Defected presents House Masters Masters At Work (4CD, double LP and digital) on Defected Records.

Pre-order on iTunes / Pre-order on Amazon

Words by Lanre Bakare