Master's At Work's 'Dope' on dope

New York Latino house star Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez chatted to Skrufff this week about his new rare soul label Kay Dee Records and revealed that despite his nickname he’s rarely dabbled with drugs.

“I’ve never tried half the drugs out there, I drink now and again, but I don’t smoke weed, I don’t care for it,” Kenny admitted.

“I guess it was a lesson I learned early on, when an uncle of mine died early from drugs. He used heroin and shit like that and he was an incredible musician, but was always in and out of jail. I was seeing this when I was ten or eleven years old then when I was seventeen, he started stealing stuff from me, so I saw how drugs took him over. Generally, he was a good person, but the drugs took him over.”

The nowadays hugely successful producer/ DJ/ house star spent his teenage years living in Brooklyn’s gang infested neighbourhood of Sunset Park and recalled watching friends becoming hopelessly addicted to crack though first encountered ecstasy in London when performing with his Masters At Work partner Lil Louis Vega, he said.

“I remember seeing this young good-looking girl in the middle of a big London superclub and she’s basically sleeping, standing up in the middle of the dance floor. It was eight in the morning then when we left the club at 11am we saw the same girl passed out on the floor, swallowing her tongue. This was in the early 90s and I was just like ‘nah, that’s not for me’,” said Kenny.

Tags

• york latino
• skrufff
• kay dee records
• sunset park
• london
• masters at work
• lil louis vega
• london