Marc 'MK' Kinchen is an artist-producer who straddles boundaries as few others can. On the one hand, he's revered by lovers of house and garage music worldwide. His classic 90s productions such as 'Burning', 'Always', K.E.L.S.E.Y's 'Boy' and 4th Measure Men's '4 You'remain floorfillers to this day. On the other, has 200-plus unmistakable remixes to his name, for artists ranging from Bizarre Inc to Blondie, not least his mix of Nightcrawlers' 'Push The Feeling On', which became one the biggest house crossover hits of the decade.
Cited as a major influence by countless leading producers – including, significantly, Todd 'Godfather of UK Garage' Edwards – here he gives us a snapshot of what’s going down in his world…
Do you think that throughout your career you have learned pretty much everything there is to learn as a producer and DJ?
When I look back at all my productions in one track listing I guess I can kind of see it, because there are plenty of records out there, and most of them sound pretty good. As far as DJing, I’m more of a producer than a DJ although I do enjoy it, especially lately when I see people react to my tracks and sets. And as I did not really used to go house clubs all the time and because I rarely DJd in the 90s, I’d say that about 90 percent of my records I’ve never heard in a club before.
How did you first get into music production?
In the 80s I loved alternative music. I loved Dépêche Mode and Skinny Puppy; a lot of weird types of music. I was always interested to learn how they made that music, so I taught myself, I bought books and I read them and studied them. They were a few times where I thought of getting lessons. However, I thought to myself if I take lessons I might get cheesy, so I decide to go on one hundred percent pure feeling.
How would you describe the MK sound?
The key element in a MK record is getting a good melody out of some type of vocal piece; you treat it like it’s live or die. I load the vocals into my sampler and literally play through the vocals syllable by syllable until I eventually start hearing syllables I like. You don’t know what they’re saying but it sounds good. You get a couple of those together and you’re going to win.
Tell us about the influence of New York and Detroit on your career…
Detroit is like dance music Mecca. I grew up there that so it’s embedded in me. And then hearing and meeting Kevin Saunderson influenced me to make things happen. Later, I moved to New York, so the NYC sound mixed with my Detroit influences, which gave me direction. New York was known for being a more mellow, smooth underground type of sound and in some way I knew how to give it energy, how to make the sound more alive.
How did Kevin Saunderson help you with your career? Is it true to say that you were his protégé?
Before working with Kevin I had never really recorded in a studio before. I never really worked with somebody that knew what they were doing, so a lot of times going in with Kevin I used to just watch him and see how he did things. The funny thing was that it was pretty much the same as what I knew, but just different equipment. That made me more confident in my own abilities too.
Is there anything in particular that you feel you’ve learned from him?
Drums; he always had the hardest hitting drums. I wasn’t going to clubs so I didn’t really understand why the drums had to be so loud! Coming from making alternative music those drums never had hits like that. Kevin used to kill the drums… it used to hurt my chest.
Did you work on Kevin’s records after that?
Chez Damier brought me in and introduced me to Kevin. Chez had my back because I was the kid in the crew. Sometimes Kevin and I never really talked, we would just work and then after the work was done, we just spoke about records. I would talk to Chez because he is from Chicago, he knew everything and he was a DJ to. He knew everything about music, he used to play me songs and explain why Marshall Jefferson does this like this and so on. It came to a point where he put out a record himself. At that time I had already done ‘Burning’ and ‘4 You’ so I had a bit of a buzz going on. He asked me to do a mix for him and that’s how the mix “Can You Feel It” came about. He was my friend so I wanted to do the record justice, I put my soul into it.
Did the records these early successes change your life?
Because I was so young when I made that record I wasn’t really aware of the feedback. I put the record out myself and distributors just kept calling back to reorder. I had nothing to gage it on, I didn’t know if those numbers were bad or good or average. I had enough to buy a new car, so I guess it was ok.
There was a period when you were not so active… when did you decide that you wanted to get back into action?
There was a period around 1996 where I was getting bored with the remixes, because everybody wanted something that sounded like Nightcrawlers. They didn’t really know about the real underground scene, they just knew about the success of that record, so everyone wanted that same sound. It wasn;t really what I was about, I wanted to do the deep sound.
Then eventually I met a guy called Jay Brown who was working with Quincy Jones. We ended up talking. I did not tell Jay Brown that I was MK he just thought that I was a producer living in New York. However, I had a $20,000 Dollar watch so I kind of looked like I was good at something.
I gave him a CD of my pop and r’n’b productions which he took home to L.A. The next day the president of Quincy Jones Music called and said “Quincy wants to sign you”. So Jay Brown started managing me, teamed me up with Jay-Z and I started to produce with him and did a couple of pop songs. Also through his connections I produced Snoop Dogg, Tevin Campbell, SWV and Dave Hollister. At that point I had no desire to go back to House music as there was nothing interesting out there for me.
How do you balance making credible, underground records with huge pop anthems?
It’s a lot harder balancing the two styles than people may think, especially when on the one hand I’m working with Willow Smith which is more edgy kind of hip-hop, compared to on the other doing stuff with Pitbull which is more totally commercial. I keep trying to bring back MK, but it’s pretty hard to juggle which is why it has taken so long to do a new MK record.
Do you have any underground records in the pipeline?
The underground records are coming; it’s good that I DJ right now and am touring. Like I said I don’t DJ that much, but doing a couple of shows, playing certain MK records has shown me that people go mad when I play my tracks. I guess that this is the type of sound that’s ‘in’ at the moment, the ‘MK sound’. I have just done a remix for Morgan Geist under his ‘Storm Queen’ guise and I will be working on more material soon.
Tell us about some of the show’s you’ve done recently…
The first one I did was with my brother Scottie Deep in Leeds, a La Loop party. I did not know what the turnout would be, but the place was totally packed. As soon as I played ‘Burning’ the crowd lost it, they absolutely lost it, was a good feeling. The response was amazing. The funny thing was that the oldest person was like 25 years old. It’s very exciting to see and makes me want to go back producing a real MK record.
House Masters MK is out 21st November - listen & pre-order
