Quentin Harris

Some people are destined for greatness. With innate talent and drive, they move forward on their path accomplishing things that most people only dream of. Quentin Harris is one such individual. As one of today’s most respected producers and DJs, Harris maintains a hectic travel schedule that spans the globe, while still finding time to work with such artists as Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake, and Jennifer Hudson. Making music is something that Quentin Harris was born to do, and he spreads his joy to people on dance floors all over the world. “Music was around me everywhere,” Quentin Harris says of his childhood growing up in Detroit, Michigan. Whether at his parents’ house or his grandmother’s, music was always playing. “From Ray Charles to classical—everything,” Quentin says. “We heard it all. I think that’s why I have such an eclectic mindset.” His family was also very musically inclined. His father and younger brother played trumpet; his mother played violin, cello, and French horn; his grandmother played piano; and his older sister sang in the church choir. So it’s no surprise that Quentin developed quite a penchant for musical instruments. He taught himself to play piano when he was five on a piano his grandmother had bought for his sister. Quentin didn’t have formal training until he was 12, when he started piano lessons with a tutor. However, by that time, he was playing Bach and Beethoven. Clearly ahead of his time, he went through three piano teachers, questioning why they were trying to make him play much simpler elementary pieces. “I'm already here; why are you trying to take me all the way back there?" After his grandfather’s passing, Quentin came across his father’s old beat-up trumpet from high school. Quentin’s interest was immediately piqued. His father bought him a trumpet of his own, and the two would have competitions. “Anything you can play, I can play better,” his father would say to motivate the young musician. They would play together; that is, until Quentin started to surpass him in skill level. “And he kindly put his trumpet down,” Quentin snickers. When he was 13, his father bought him a set of turntables. Unlike most kids his age, Quentin never wanted toys for Christmas or birthdays, but instead asked for records, radios, or other electronics. It was also around this time that he first entered the recording studio. His uncle, who had a hip-hop group, would bring Quentin along to play keyboard lines on the synthesizers during their sessions. Before long, Quentin was telling the group what to do and directing them musically. “I didn’t realize, at the time, what I was doing was being a producer,” remarks Harris. When he got to high school, Quentin started picking up other brass instruments with ease. He joined the symphonic orchestra and the jazz band, and was even assigned a project where he had to score and arrange the parts for the whole school band. Quentin played keyboards in his own band as well, where he started experimenting with the sounds of hip-hop and R&B, before they had truly emerged on the scene. “It's always been my mentality, even to this day,” Quentin explains. “I'm always looking forward and thinking ahead.” Growing up in Detroit in the 80s, Quentin was heavily influenced by the sounds of techno and pop on the radio at that time. “Radio was very different when I was growing up,” he recalls. “The actual DJ was a DJ and not just a radio personality.” Hearing the music of such influences as Prince and Michael Jackson as well as the electronic stylings of bands like Kraftwerk helped to shape the ear of the budding producer. “I guess it made me who I am today musically,” he says. After high school, Quentin started taking trips to New York. “That’s really when I got the bug,” says Harris. “It was everything I liked that was being played in the clubs in Detroit, but on a bigger scale. I knew this was where I needed to be.” The first DJ he heard in New York was Junior Vasquez. “It was mind-blowing because I had never heard records played like that before,” he remembers. “He took records and made them sing. He took records that I heard a lot and presented them in a new light to me—manipulating them, mixing them in a certain way, bringing them in and out, playing with people’s heads with music.” The second New York DJ that really opened up Harris was Timmy Regisford of Shelter fame. Regisford’s mixing skills had a huge impact on Harris: “He was just relentless. I never heard any spaces; I never heard any pauses; I never heard any breaks.” Back in Detroit, Harris started working with Michael J. Powell, who produced Anita Baker’s three Grammy award-winning albums, freelancing at Powell’s studio as a session musician for such artists as Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle. Harris got even more heavily involved with hip-hop, playing at open mic nights at The Hip-Hop Shop on 7 Mile in Detroit, where he met many of the emerging heavy hitters of the hip-hop scene, including Eminem and many of the other famed characters from the film 8 Mile. “The music scene in Detroit is very small, and I’ve had the pleasure of learning from and working with a lot of great people,” Quentin states. “But I always knew that, in order for me to actually do what I had to do, I couldn’t do it and still live in Detroit. I guess this may be my competitive nature, but I needed to be where everything was.” Quentin was offered the position of touring DJ with The Masterminds, a local group for whom he had produced a number of tracks. Quentin also figured this was his opportunity to get out of Detroit. After touring for a number of months, he decided to leave Detroit permanently for New York. “I literally took two suitcases—one full of records, one full of clothes—and got on a plane with a one-way ticket to New York,” he recalls. He started working at Satellite Records, and met many of the movers and shakers in the New York music scene. Among them was a manager by the name of Marvin Howell who wanted to assess Quentin’s talent. Howell gave Quentin a CD full of a cappellas, which included the track “Ready for Love” by an artist named India.Arie. The remix that Quentin did of the song ended up in the hands of Timmy Regisford, who liked it so much that he asked to have a meeting with him. “That was the door opening,” says Quentin. Quentin considers his big break, however, to be the remix he did of Donnie’s “Cloud 9.” He gave the record to Regisford who liked the record so much that he played it twelve times in one night. “That was the record that started the whirlwind,” says Harris. “There was such demand for it. Everybody was clamoring for it, everyone wanted it, and no one could get it. It was crazy.” Quentin followed the underground success of “Cloud 9” with his epic remix of Mariah Carey’s “Don’t Forget About Us,” a 13-minute track that demonstrated Harris’ virtuosic production talents and which catapulted him onto the gay scene. In 2005, his original track, “Let’s Be Young,” gave him widespread recognition across Europe, and his reinterpretation of the Leela James classic, “My Joy,” is the stuff of legend. He also produced a remake of the 90s After 7 hit “Can’t Stop” with Jason Walker, which was recently nominated for an International Dance Music Award (IDMA) for Best House/Garage Track of 2008. The records, although all produced by Harris, are all sonically different. “I do whatever I feel works with the song. I’ve always been this kind of person—I take from my musical surroundings, and I put them all together. Just like if you hear me DJ, you’ll hear all different kinds of things; you won’t hear one kind of sound. My music has always been like that.” Always walking a fine line between commercial and underground, Harris was one of the first to mix house music with hip-hop. “I've never been able to confine myself to one sound, and I've always experimented with music and meshing things together,” he explains. At a time when music is so accessible, and everyone it seems is a DJ (including iTunes), it can be challenging for an artist with Harris’ musical background and talent. Promoters looking at the bottom line might be more inclined to hire a local iPod DJ to spin Top 40 because they feel that that’s what the crowd wants. Harris tends to disagree, however, arguing that someone had to play Britney, Whitney, and Madonna for the first time when they were still unknowns. “My job as a DJ, first and foremost, is to entertain; then you have to inform the people and educate them,” he says. He believes there should be more balance in what DJs play. If you hear Madonna in a club, you should also hear an unknown artist that you’ve never heard of. He feels that today’s DJs should take more risks, especially when the average partygoer can download almost anything from such sites as Masterbeat.com and Beatport. “It goes back to making the record say something,” he comments. Harris feels it is his job as DJ to weed through the excess to find the good stuff and to use today’s technology to play it in unique ways, just as he heard Junior Vasquez and Timmy Regisford years ago when he first started coming to New York. Harris enjoys a huge international following, and he travels extensively to such destinations as London, Frankfurt and Ibiza, as well as to such exotic locations as Estonia and South Africa. As you can see on numerous clips on YouTube, the crowds overseas idolize Harris like a rock star, staring up at him in the DJ booth like he’s spinning straw into gold. He credits his success in those markets to his production work. Although Harris has been making records for years, he just recently released his debut album, No Politics, on Strictly Rhythm. In addition to his recent hit “Can’t Stop” with Jason Walker, the disc also includes tracks featuring Colton Ford, Monique Bingham, and Byron Stingily. Harris has also collaborated with house legend Ultra Naté and is currently working on an album with her. He is also putting together his second album, exploring new sounds to incorporate. If you listen to some of his latest tracks on his MySpace page, you can hear some rock elements blended with his trademark house beats. “Like Grace Jones said,” Quentin comments, “give them what they’re not expecting.” Harris is also exploring the art of songwriting, which is one talent he has not yet fully developed. Challenging himself to grow as an artist, he wants to write his own material so that this next album can be a bit more personal. “I feel like I have a lot to say,” he says. “I can make you a fierce track, I can give you a fierce remix, I can produce you a fierce song, but I don’t write songs.” Not yet, anyway. However, Harris’ drive and musical talent are sure to open up this avenue of expression. Although only in his 30s, Quentin Harris is an old soul. His music, though fresh and new, harkens back to the classic house sounds of the past. This is certainly just the beginning of a very long journey for this prodigy; Quentin Harris is sure to make beautiful music for years to come. We should consider ourselves lucky, for his music brings not only him, but all of us, joy.