CUTTING RECORDS

In the past, "Little" Louie Vega and Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez have joined the elite among remix teams by reconstructing records for the likes of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Lisa Stansfield, Martha Wash, Ce Ce Peniston, Vanessa Williams and DeeLite to name a few. Additionally, they have developed a knack for evolving records that seemed to have little club potential (Tito Puente, The Neville Bros., St. Etienne) into top-of-the-charts hits with their infectious Masters at Work dubs.

While Louie and Kenny started out as DJ's, their respective roads to success followed somewhat different paths. Louie seemed destined for a career in music from birth as he comes from a gene pool richly immersed in musical tradition. His father, Louie Vega Jr. is an accomplished jazz and Latin sax player, and his uncle Hector Lavoe is a famed singer as well as a staple in the Latin music world. While in his teens, Louie started spinning records at the Devil's Nest, Heartthrob and Studio 54. By the time he started doing production work, he had worked in nearly every dance club in New York and reached legendary status as a DJ in the dance community.

Meanwhile Kenny "Dope" was doing DJ work with his crew who called themselves "The Masters at Work." While dropping hip hop beats at neighborhood parties, he decided he could create beats and tracks as well as the artists and producers involved on the records he was spinning, and so created Dope Wax, his own independent label. And by the time mutual friend Todd Terry - to whom he lent the name "Masters at Work" to for the 1988 release "Alright, Alright" - introduced him to "Little" Louie, he had built a reputation as one of the best beat-men in town, well versed in Hip Hop, Dancehall and House music.

It seemed from the start that the marriage of hip hop and house would prove an eventful venture as the Masters' accomplishments would attest. And their current compilation, appropriately titled "Masters at Work the Album," offers credence to this claim with something for everyone from rich melodic balladeering layered over infectious, underground house tracks, to the soulful funky fusion of hip hop on the flip side. Accompanied by the powerful vocals of established divas such as Jocelyn Brown and India along with the rapping of Gringo and Screechie Dan, the Masters have created a package both radio friendly and nightclub minded. The album's first release and mega international hit "I Can't Get No Sleep" features India working this fun-track with scatting, vibrating vocals that will leave listeners with a taste of jazz, club and house to appease their pallets.