I want to start this article with a confession: there's a special place in my heart for Canada! Yep, that's true. Canada is a beautiful country, and on top of that, it is a place where you can hear great music on radio airwaves. That happened to a friend of mine. During a recent stay in Toronto he heard a song from somebody called Adam "Suges" Sugar on a local radio station, and told me about it.

Of course, I had never heard of Adam or his label, Gemma Records, before but open-minded as I was, I went to their Web site and checked them out. 24 hours later I was hooked up for an interview, while the money for Adam's latest EP "Suges Wrex Shop" (GEM-001) was on its way to Canada. And, believe me people, I can't wait to get my hands on that vinyl, because it hit me right in the center of my funk-starved heart.

That's right! Adam Sugar is responsible for my good moods during the last couple of days, and the talkbox sounds of "Sexy Lady" are constantly releasing more amphetamines and other drugs into my blood stream to keep it that way. Finally, I heard the groovy and funky sounds again that I used to get from the likes of Roger Troutman, Zapp, and all the other groups who left us at the end of the early 80's.

I highly recommend that you do the same: check out Gemma's web site, listen to the sound samples and make up your own mind. I am pretty sure you will embrace what you hear!

I had the pleasure of talking to Adam about this release and his music, and I was delighted to see a fellow funk lova in him. We here at UF hope that the mothership will protect and guide him on his musical journeys!

DJ MG
May 2000

The following interview was conducted by DJ MG on May 24th, 2000:

Where were you born, and how did you start with music?

I've been representing Toronto since birth, April 16th 1977. I used to want to get away, maybe Detroit where most of my family is or Miami, but now I'm just diggin' T-Dot. My parents gave me an old-school Casio keyboard when I was about 4, and I never stopped playing it. I was always jamming to the built-in queso-bossa-nova beats, so they signed me up for piano lessons. I got up to grade 4, then I quit because I was having so many musical ideas and kept bringing my new songs to my teacher and she kept telling me, "Less composing, more practicing!" So I said fuck it, Bach couldn't rock like this anyway. Hah.

What kind of music do you like in general?

I've been a house-head since I was maybe 10 or 11. It's my first love. I was too young to go to clubs so I'd get my fix every Sunday on 88.1 CKLN (local college station) with 'Dave's Dance Music,' a show that's been on for just about as long as I've been alive. I like every kind of music that's got soul to it, so I dig my acid/soul jazz, R&B, west-coast hip hop, most definitely my funk (especially the Electro kind), and that certain 70's fusion-flavor of old school, you know, the kind Jamiroquai's been ripping off since day one, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Brothers Johnson (actually pretty much anything Quincy Jones produced), Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, etc. Plus I like some "weird shit" as they call it, keeps me innovative, I love Isao Tomita and all that early moog-ish, Art of Noise, some stuff on Warp Records like Boards of Canada, and I also respect the masters... best classical composer of all time: Claude Debussy.

You've been making music since 1989 under the name Sonic Ecstasy Productions. At this point you had been 12 years old! Is that true?

Yep, back in those days "real" keyboards weren't cheap, I sure couldn't afford one, so we used our computers and sound cards to make music with pattern sequencers. They called it "tracking," if you made this kind of music you were called a "tracker." So for about 5 or 6 years SEP was a tracking company... I had a lot of people under the name at one point, and we put out tons of music. We also were the first to put out real house music in this format, as in COMPOSING it instead of just looping house records. We invented a lot of techniques to get that house "swing" that a lot of people after us used. You can still find some of them on the Net. I didn't start making tunes with a keyboard until about 1994.

What kind of music do you consider your foundation?

One of my best friends, Desmond Williams, is pretty much responsible for my "musical" upbringing, he turned me on to all that good old shit from the 70's and the electrofunk sound. I mean, once I heard Roger and Zapp, George Clinton and all that on-the-one P-Funk, Midnight Starr, Radio, Herbie Hancock, I just couldn't take it anymore. I was like, "why don't people make this anymore? I got to bring it back." So I built up my skills by trying to exactly duplicate a song I liked, down to recreating all the analog sounds. I did that with my funk and my house music, I'd try to duplicate Masters at Work, Todd Terry, Frankie Knuckles, and Todd Edwards... Actually, to this date I think I'm the only guy who ever managed to perfectly duplicate a Todd Edwards song, but by the time I figured it out, the style was over.

How did this evolve into house?

The first record I ever bought was Paradise Orchestra 7, Roger S. produced it. It was just pure jazz, live bass and pianos, over a house beat. I loved that record, and that's when I realized it was okay to make "musical" house music, cause I wasn't going to have anything to do with loops or progressive. I started taking composing seriously after that.

How many instruments do you play?

Keys, guitar, bass, little drums, little sax.

Your latest release, "Suges Wrex Shop," is out on Gemma Records out of Toronto, Canada. Please tell us something about Gemma.

Gemma Records was started out of necessity. Every label I took "Suges Wrex Shop" to either hated it, weren't sure about it, or wanted to change it all around, "house it up more," take out the liveness, add vocals where there shouldn't have been any, et cetera. They're business people, I guess they have their reasons. So I said to myself, the only thing I've ever wanted to do in my music career is have a record out, like most composers in their bedrooms, so even if everyone hates it I'm going to borrow some money, make this fucking record, put it in the stores, and get a summer job to pay it back. That's the truth of how Gemma started. I brought in my two main boys from the Hill, Ronn and Sweeney, both bedroom composers too, and we all worked together to get this thing started.

So now that things are happening, we've got some plans. Gemma wants to put out the high-quality shit of every genre. There's a lot of music scenes here in Toronto that exist and thrive just in Toronto and other obscure places... in other words, they exist and pat each other on the back on how good they are because they don't try to compete. Gemma wants to be the first Toronto label that's world class, we want to make house records that our U.S. people are going to love, we want to make techno and ELM records that our U.K. people are gonna love. We just want to take our time, do quality records, and sign acts that are doing something different, something innovative, but still have soul and feel the funk.

Coming up from Gemma we've got a dancefloor-massacre deep house record from my boy Martino from downtown, soulful breaks and other funky experimentalism from Triplet up in the Hill, and Darky Power is finishing up his album right now and I've heard a few slates from it, it's the funkiest techno I've ever heard. And right now I'm going back into the studio to do record number 2. Keep checking out for Gemma, we promise to release absolutely no crap!

"Suges Wrex Shop" already created quite a buzz. Are you surprised about the feedback so far?

Hell yeah! When we put this thing together we designed it so it was cost as little money as possible so we could all cover the loss. We put the record in stores in February and didn't come back until March and got yelled at by the store owners for leaving them dry for so long! Shit has happened so fast, I really haven't taken it in yet. I still get shy when I hear the track on the radio or the club.

Do you think the Canadian audience made a difference?

Definitely, and especially for my confidence in the record. T.O. Peeps are known worldwide as being the pickiest, harshest, and most opinionated mofos on the planet — you should read how some CD's and records get MASHED up in the reviews... but all the headz in Toronto have given me the nicest response anyone could ever want on their first record. People calling me up, leaving messages, e-mails, stepping up to me at the clubs... you can't understand how glad I am that people are feeling it. I've always wanted to entertain people, and here I am finally doing it.

But the best thing about Toronto are the DJs. You don't understand how supportive and nice these people are, absolutely no attitude. Some of these DJs the big-name guys I have spoken to in my life, approaching them for the first time, and as soon as I handed them the record they'd put it on at the club or on the radio. I got to give props out to Jason Palma who pushed my record so hard over at Play de Record, Vasi and the Metropolis crew, Jason B. and the crew at Soul Fusion Express, Denise Benson, Marco at CHIN, Desi, Andrew and Geoff of Darker Than Blue, the milk. crew, Evadelicious DJ Nicole, and all the T-Dot DJs rockin the record.

You did something very unique on this record, which is a combination of catchy commercial-sounding music paired with absolute quality and dopest underground flava. Is that what you intended to do, and do you think that house music really has the power and ability to catch a mainstream audience?

I'm not really sure how or why it turned out how it did. When it comes to music I'm a pretty simple guy, I'd rather feel it more than think about it, so I never let the lyrics or melodies go too wild on that ass, but I always shoot to make something about the track catchy... some people may think that's selling out but you'd be surprised how hard it is to do, and like I said before I like to entertain, and that is my goal, so it's my job to give listeners something to walk away with after the track is over. My number one focus is danceability... if I can't dance to it in my room while I'm making it, it has to be done all over again. I really wish house would be accepted by the mainstream... there's nothing wrong with the music, it's come a long way and is very professionally produced these days — all the right elements, catchy lyrics, good musicianship, but you know how the mainstream is... scared shitless of anything soulful. When people get sick of the factory-pressed pop, I think house music will rise.

"Sexy Lady" is my favorite song on your EP. Is it a homage to Roger Troutman and Zapp, and were you nervous using the talkbox on it?

Absolutely. Roger is my favorite funk artist of all time, and I saw him in concert twice when he came up to Toronto. His shows were so fun and had so much energy. I learned and was inspired to play the talkbox from Roger, obviously, just like Teddy Riley, DeVante Swing, Linslee and all of them. It was my dream to one day play with Roger. When he died me and all my crew mourned him for a long time, and even though I was nervous because everyone thought the talkbox was cheesy and that it would never work on a house track, I put Sexy Lady on the record anyway to pay proper respect, homage, and cause everyone to remember Roger.

You have lots of live instruments on this record. In my opinion, live instruments make the difference between quality house productions and the rest. Do you agree?

Not entirely, but any house tune with some live instruments sounds nice, even the cheese. Deep tracks seem to work better when their synthesized: look at Blue 6's "Sweeter Love" and Blaze's "Lovelee Dae," two quintessential deep house tunes... completely synthesized and utterly beautiful, but to prove the point further, Blue 6's second effort, "Music and Wine," even though it was very nice and featured live bass, I'd be willing to bet that track would have been better with the proper synth bass.

Putting real instruments in house music is hard to do mostly because of financial concerns. It's no secret that underground producers make hardly any money, and the cost of going into the studio to record instruments instead of just running everything off your keyboard sometimes can't be covered. But on the other hand, if you can't play real instruments don't use imitation sounds on your keyboard! When you need real bass, you have to use real bass or don't make the track at all. That goes too for guitars and horns, because no one's fooled by the fake horn sounds coming out of a keyboard.

Who engineered your EP?

I did, and not a very good job I think. I've learned a lot, read a lot of mixing and mastering books since this record and the next one's going to be much better, beleedat.

Do you perform your music live, and are concerts planned for the future?

Yeah, I love playing live. I've been in bands for years, and it's nice to have my own now. We're called Suges and The GBO (Ghetto-Booty Orchestra), and the focus is to do house music live PROPERLY. A lot of times live house music ends up sounding too much like disco, or there's just not enough live elements. I think we've found the right balance. A lot of times the tracks sound even better live. I'm going to finish a second EP, probably by September or October, and once that's pressed and out I'm going to reassemble the GBO, we're going to work out an all-the-way live show, and we'll get on tour.

What tracks are in your CD player at the moment?

Don't you mean my turntable? Ha. Right now I'm rocking my Roy Davis Jr. collection because I just met him for the first time on Saturday, definitely one of my idols, and he was DJing and he played my record! So here I was, in the DJ booth with the father of soulful house, and he drops my joint on the turntables. It took me a couple of days to come down from that. It's a 5-disc CD player so I've also got in there Curtis Mayfield "Live," Stevie Wonder "Innervisions," Herbie Hancock "Feets Don't Fail Me Now" and Jodeci "The Show, The Afterparty, The Hotel." Nothing too new.

OK, last question. Just how DO you pronounce Suges?

It's "Shugs."

Thanks a lot for the interview!