Celebrating Black History: Pioneers of house music
A trip through the timeline of dance music
Roy Davis Jr.
Although he came to prominence a few years later than his peers, Roy Davis Jr. is known as a key figure that brought deep house music into prominence during the 90s. He worked as A&R for Strictly Rhythm during this time, also joining Phuture from 1990-1997, a time period that included releases like ‘Spirit’, ‘Rise From Your Grave’, ‘Mental Breakdown’ and ‘Inside Out’.
In 1997, Roy collaborated with Peven Everett on a track that is widely regarded as arguably the greatest garage house track of all time, ‘Gabriel’. As the story goes, it only took him 14 hours to produce the track and the rest is history. Not to mention his work with Jay Juniel on the Men From The Nile project, delivering the tribal track ‘Watch Them Come!!!’, also featuring Peven Everett.
Roy also spent an extensive amount of time working with Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk during the formative years of his Roulé label and has worked with artists like Mary J. Blige, Seal, Faith Evans and more.
