Going Deep with Jay Simon

JAY SIMON: No doubt the strongest influence on what I do currently is informed by a Midwestern dance music sensibility, namely from Chicago and Detroit. I grew up listening to a lot of RnB, which during the '80s and early '90s was a hugely diverse musical genre, and that diversity definitely influenced my "anything goes" approach to soulful dance music. Growing up going to a huge Baptist church in the Atlanta suburbs with an amazing music program played a strong early influence as well, in addition to early '90s hip hop production. Although I didn't grow up listening to underground house, one of my dad's best friends was Byron Stingily, the lead singer of Ten City, and my uncle was a local DJ in the '80s and '90s. 

I ended up getting deeper into underground electronic music in middle school. Years after I had already been DJing, I finally got to check out my uncle's record collection, which included a ton of records that I play, and even a few I wish I had, from the Logg LP on Salsoul, to rare deep garage records from Vil-N-X. Naturally, I didn't grow up in Chicago in the '80s, but it was reaffirming to know that I had come by it honestly. In Atlanta, I listened to a ton of Southern rap as well, and I definitely like to sneak in some Atlanta booty bass classics if I'm playing electro.

You also spent some time in D.C.
I moved to Northern Virginia my senior year of high school, and most of my initial social dance music experiences via parties or clubs were between D.C., Baltimore, and NYC. My taste had already developed pretty strongly before I moved there, but I did meet some friends who were also into various forms of underground music, and that's where I started my label, Must Have Records, and began trying to produce.

I mostly just flying solo really. The majority of my musical development has occurred outside of the influence of a scene. Even now, most of the music I find that I like and play is just through my own personal digging, or through a few friends who also aren't so involved in the current scene. I don't really like to go with what everyone else is doing, and due to my diverse style, I can stay true to myself while doing completely different styles. If I feel like a sound is getting too saturated and I'm getting bored with it, I might let it cool off then come back to it later. 

Technology is a double-edged sword. It's allowed me and many others access to great music that would otherwise go unheard, and the ability to connect with like-minded individuals across the world. At the same time, it's created a highly disposable culture of shameless followers (quite literally, "Yo! Follow me on Instagram"). There's a lot of lip service, fashion, and posturing, but very little real innovation or emotional content from my perspective...and there's a gross devaluation of music itself. Even the resurgence of vinyl's popularity speaks to this, with people seemingly more interested in the object itself rather than the music.

For me it's a sound, just like funk is a sound. If you're versed in that style, you can recognize it. As far as something on my label that exemplifies that sound, it may be an obvious choice, but I'd say Seven Davis Jr's One EP, specifically the title track. It just has that bittersweet sound to it that I look for, but is becoming increasingly hard to find.

I have respect for several other DJs, but I want to give a shoutout to Cullen Cole. He's an Atlanta DJ who has been playing since the mid '90s I think. Cullen and Kai Alce were the main people bringing the dope deep house acts to Atlanta way before this music had any sort of wider appeal. For someone who has been DJing for so long, he has no problem bringing out obscure, deep, old school cuts or playing some dope new shit that that is overlooked. Rarely do I hear DJs actually playing the true sound of underground deep house. He is one of them.