Search - Masters at Work :: Kings of House

CD 1 moved me, CD 2 was just OK

C. Bell | Allentown, PA | 02/21/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a fan of Masters At Work. Their productions were a staple of my music arsenal during the House years. I was very happy to see some "new" (albeit old material) house mixes. However I was a little disappointed. The Kenny Dope CD (CD 1) is tight. Good selections and good blends. The Louie Vega CD (CD 2) didn't move me as much, mainly due to the selection of tracks. My preference is towards what is now called "soulful" house."

Very good house compilation by a couple of legends

dj matt from nyc | Brooklyn, NY United States | 11/16/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Masters at Work have been at the top of the house scene for more than fifteen years now.



Louie Vega is one of the greatest DJs of all time with a career spanning more than 20 years. I recently learned that he was the first dj to break freestyle (a now defunct style of NYC dance music). Louie has also released some amazing albums recently with his Elements of Life band.



Kenny Dope is an amazing DJ and producer. He brings hip hop sensibilities to jazzy and vocal house music. Hes also one of the best drum programmers ever to touch an mpc.



Together as masters at work, kenny and louie are an amazing production team that has produced some of the best modern dance music ever. Their album as nuyorican soul is really amazing.



Enough about them...

This album is a great mix of classic club tunes. There are also one or two newer songs (V gets jazzy is a remake of KC Flightt's classic "lets get jazzy"). other new songs mixed in are "i wanna see you freak (like this)" which is a remake of Chip E's like this, which itself is a remake of ESG's moody (all bangin club classics). If you like eclectic dance music with a soulful feeling then this is for you. Many of these tracks are very raw and are from a time when house music was very new and the people making the songs had very little money. So they are very basic, but they convey a raw instinct that is missing from a lot of music these days. The idea here is to dance! Its not about anything else. Close your eyes, put this cd on full volume (with plenty of bass) and picture a dark hot room with 300 people stomping the floor at 5am.



My favorite song is Romanthony's "let me show you love" which has not been re-released since 1994 when it first came out. If you can get your hands on the vinyl version of this compilation, you get the full version of that track.



I would disagree with the previous review stating that diva house vocals are 'cheesy'... you either like it or you dont!"

Long Live The Kings!

Thomas Horan | Chapel Hill, NC | 08/31/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Kenny Dope and Little Louie Vega, fifteen-year veterans of the club scene, revisit the Chicago-style House music of the late eighties and early nineties. Vega focuses on the dance anthems of that era, while Dope weaves a spare, seamless, largely instrumental mix over one irresistible disc.



On Dope's section, lyrics are infrequent and cheesy diva wailing is used sparingly. What remains is the ecstasy minus the excess. Vega shows less restraint, and his contributions suffer accordingly. Yet he makes a few excellent choices, especially Joe Smooth's Promised Land and Frankie Knuckles' Your Love.



This compilation captures the purity of a sound that in recent years has been widely commercialized, reminding us that long after the death of Disco, House got the world dancing again.

"