Welcome. My name is Simon Dunmore from Defected Records London.

When I first started collecting records in the mid-70s, I could never have imagined that it would lead me to owning an independent house music label,

let alone getting to work alongside some of my musical

heroes. Back in September 2011, I met the Godfather of House, Frankie Knuckles.

It was a time when the house scene was being challenged by the dominance of EDM,

so we discussed his early days in Chicago and New York, his career at Death Mix and how new communities

were emerging so that the house music scene could reestablish itself globally.

You are entering the house of

Frankie knuckles.

So could you just tell us a little bit about your introduction to music.

Before you was a DJ, how your tastes were honed,

what was the music, who were your influences.

In elementary school, I used to do all draw sketch anything and so what would happen is that when I'd come home from school I'd sit there and the stereo would be on my sister stereo would be on and I'm just listening to whatever music she's

playing. I mean everything from West Montgomery to Sergio Mendez in Brazil 66 and you know a

lot of jazz and then you know the Motown stuff that I would hear on the street anyway so it was a lot of that and by the time I got into like the 11th grade you know I learned what it was to go out and hang out and I'm running around with Larry LaVann at this particular point, you know, and finding all, discovering all these clubs and all this nightlight and he took me to the loft for the very first time.

So you were hanging out with Larry LaVann at the loft when you were 16 years old?

Well, I met Larry actually when I was 14, 14 years old.

So I might have been still in junior high school or something like that.

And by the time I got into high school,

yet then I began to run the streets with him.

And he was DJing then?

No, neither one of us were DJing.

...