DJ SNEAK

Alongside Derrick Carter, DJ Sneak is a leading light of Chicago’s second generation of DJs and producers. Accepted across the spectrum, Sneak can play a deep house club one minute and a techno club the next, but his heart lies with largely instrumental house music and disco. Still in his twenties, he’s risen to prominence in the late nineties via a series of releases on credible, independent labels, proving that you don’t need to take the major label buck to be a success. Now accepted amongst the premier league of international DJs, Sneak is tipped by many as the Next Big Thing. One look at his waistline, however, and you could easily argue that he’s already there…

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Sneak’s family emigrated to the US when he was 13 and settled in Chicago. Young Sneak spoke no English upon arrival, but became a graffiti writer and it was at this point that he acquired the ‘Sneak’ tag. Yet instead of immersing himself in the hip-hop culture usually associated with graffiti and tagging, he was attracted to the instrumental dance music he heard on WBMX’s seminal Hot Mix 5 shows (the Hot Mix 5 were a highly influential group of old school Chicago DJs, who included Farley Jackmaster Funk and Bad Boy Bill).

Sneak began DJing in 1986 on a friend’s turntables, going on to play weddings and house parties, but he put DJing aside a few years later when, inspired by fellow Chicagoan Derrick Carter, he moved into production for the first time. By now, like Carter, he was working in Gramaphone Records shop, which gave him a valuable insight into the highly competitive world of DJing.

In 1992 he launched his own label, Defiant, with his own debut release, Sneaky Traxx Volume 1. The record brought him to the attention of one Curtis Jones, better known as Cajmere and/or Green Velvet, and Sneak eventually went on to release several records on Jones’ Cajual and Relief labels, starting with the Blue Funk EP in 1994. Relief was subsequently credited as the leader of a renaissance in Chicago house music and Sneak was right there in the thick of it, so it’s no surprise that his DJing career benefited greatly as a result. He began to play out of town and secured residencies at Vinyl, NYC and Industry, Toronto. It wasn’t long before the international bookings followed and he was forced to quit his job at Gramaphone.

In the wake of his Relief releases, Sneak released several EPs for labels such as Downtown, Strictly Rhythm, DV8 and Feverpitch, as well as the second volume of Sneaky Traxx on Defiant. He also launched two new labels. Unabomber was co-owned with Mario J, resident at Industry, and was intended for more experimental music. Four EPs were released between 1996 and 1997, after which the pair took an extended break before the fifth Unabomber record surfaced in 1999. Plumb Music, on the other hand, is an offshoot of Defiant and is intended for deeper, more soulful music. A joint venture between Sneak and his brother Juan, Plumb has so far released music by Derrick Carter and Sneak himself.

In 1996 Sneak released his debut LP, Rice & Beans, Please - the title a reference to a staple of the Puerto Rican diet - and almost immediately followed up with the harder, trackier selection, Blue Funk Files. Both albums were well-received, but his real ‘breakthrough’ came a year later with You Can’t Hide From Your Bud on Derrick Carter’s Classic label, an irresistible cut-up of a Teddy Pendergrass classic which became a dancefloor hit the world over and was acclaimed as the house release of the year. Yet the record almost became an albatross around Sneak’s neck as he was subsequently pigeonholed as ‘the king of the disco cut-ups’, much to his annoyance.

He reacted against this perception with his 1997 drum’n’bass collaboration with Armand van Helden, Psychic Bounty Killaz. The record attracted considerable publicity and did quite well, but it was van Helden who took the flak for what was seen by some as an example of American house producers trying to ‘do jungle’ (Todd Terry was another producer who experimented with drum’n’bass around the same time). Another collaboration released in the same year was Power Plant Revisited on Chord, a joint production with Roy Davis Jr and a tribute to Frankie Knuckles’ 1987 club of the same name. Sneak also had a well-publicised spat with UK club Back To Basics over their recording of Sneak’s appearance at the club for which Basics had neglected to obtain Sneak’s permission.

Yet more EPs followed, on labels like Henry Street, 83 West, Strictly and Get, plus several more on Defiant, and Sneak maintains a regular release schedule to this day. Interestingly Sneak has never signed to a major label; instead, he decided to manage his own affairs and launched Tight Artist Management in 1988 with Christine Pazzanese, the co-founder of influential NYC label Spiritual Life. Tight now looks after several other well-known house artists, such as Bad Boy Bill, Junior Sanchez and Derrick Carter, as well as up and coming DJs like Mario J, DJ Emily and DJ Heather. A bi-monthly Tight club night was also launched at The End club in London.

In remixing too, Sneak has largely stuck to underground, independent house records, although he has mixed the likes of DJ Rap, Everything But The Girl and Sneaker Pimps along the way. More recently, Sneak has been involved in launching Sneak-Peak.com, an e-commerce company targeting the music industry.

Sneak is now working with LA DJ Doc Martin under the name of Kingsize Funk, with an album in the pipeline, and is rumoured to have had a hand in the forthcoming new Daft Punk album (Daft Punk namechecked him on their groundbreaking Homework debut). He’s also planning to move Defiant up a gear with new material and a series of mixed compilation albums.
Rob Thomas


DJ Sneak at a glance

Age: 29
Real name: Carlos Sosa
Appearance: fat bloke in shorts
Known associates: Doc Martin, Derrick Carter and various other Chicago DJs, Daft Punk, Roger Sanchez, Mario J
Other jobs: producer/remixer, artist management, e-commerce
DJing style: house, hard house, disco and a bit of techno too, Chicago style
Best known for: You Can’t Hide From Your Bud and other disco cut-ups
Recording pseudonyms: DJ Sneak
Where to see/hear him: www.djsneak.com ; Shelter, Chicago; Industry, Toronto; house venues worldwide
Mix albums: Kinky Trax Collection [with Princess Julia] (React); Buggin Da Beats (Moonshine)
Do say: ‘Fancy a spot of lunch?’
Don’t say: ‘Are there any disco records left you haven’t sampled?