House music is one of the most popular musical genres in the world, but A-Trak, one of the genre’s most popular producers, sees a little bit of a problem with the game. DJs tend to spend all their time behind the boards on stage instead of among the people, so A-Trak recruited fellow DJ, the legendary Todd Terry, to record a funky little reminder that “DJs Gotta Dance More.” While A-Trak provides the toe-tapping drums and electrifying bass, Terry enters the vocal booth to deliver a spoken word, half-rapped discourse about the importance of house music and house DJ’s crowd participation.
The video, directed by Lauren Sick, depicts the painstaking construction of the track in the studio, with A-Trak, his engineer, and Terry hunched over the soundboard as Terry’s lyrics parallel the process, detailing late nights “getting the groove right” while his mom wonders why he “keep on playing the same thing over and over again.”
Terry’s chops extend all the way back to the early days of the rise of the Chicago House, mixing at clubs and parties in the 1980s, and producing almost exclusively from sampled records like many of the hip-hop producers of the era. His remix of the Jungle Brothers hit “I’ll House You” is considered one of the groundbreaking, crossover moments for the modern house sound.
