Black History Month: KING BRITT

King Britt

King Britt is a Philadelphia icon. Born in 1968, he established himself fairly early as a musical presence in Philly as the import buyer for Tower Records. After graduating from Central High School, he took the job there and became a huge asset for the company and the city due to his extensive knowledge of dance music from around the world. He continued his education at Temple University where he studied marketing and business. in 1990 he started his first DJ residency at Philadelphia clubs, Silk City and Revival. The two gigs helped shape dance music in the city and established King as a mainstay in the nightlife scene. After teaming up with Josh Wink, he produced his first commercial release for Strictly Rhythm entitled “Tribal Confusion.”

In 1992, King began DJing for Grammy Award winning group Digable Planets and embarked on a world tour with the legendary Sade. After touring from ’92-’94, King and Wink started Ovum Recordings and dropped King Britt’s “Supernatural” featuring Philadelphia poet, Ursula Rucker. The tune became a classic in the international rave scene and a club mainstay in the US. 

Britt formed the collective, Sylk130 in 1998 and released the debut album “When The Funk Hits The Fan” on Ovum/Columbia. The project went Gold and received worldwide critical acclaim taking King Britt’s career to another level. The second Sylk130 project, more focused on the influence of King’s heroes from the 80s dance era, was released in 2001 and featured De La Soul, Alison Moyet, Grover Washington Jr., Lady Alma, and more. The same year, King resigned from Ovum and went onto pursue more production work on his own. He began taking on gigs remixing everyone from Tori Amos, Quincy Jones, and Miles Davis to The Isley Bros., Saul Williams, Macy Gray, Wendy & Lisa, among many others. In 2002, he released “Adventures in Lo-Fi” as part of BBE’s legendary Beat Generation Series. in 2005, he produced the acclaimed new take on Sister Gertrude Morgan’s “Preservation Hall” which went on to be featured on True Blood, Miami Vice, Live Without Dead Time, and the AdBusters Compilation. The following year, King did a more techno-focused project under the name The Nova Dream Sequence on Compost Recordings which was praised by legends Carl Craig and Derrick May. 

King created the Intricate Beauty album in 2010 for Nervous Recordings and in 2014 composed “The Phoenix” by Fhloston Paradigm for the forward thinking Hyperdub label. Keeping a true workaholic’s studio schedule, King Britt continues to release music at an astounding rate. Whether under his own name as an artist, as a remixer, or under one of his various aliases, (Scuba, ObaFunke, Sylk130, Fhloston Paradigm, Saturn Never Sleeps, The Nova Dream Sequence, Firefly, Soul Litchfield, Dynamic), King Britt continues to push the boundaries of soul, dance, and experimental electronic music to his global audience.