Kerri Chandler

East Orange and the Zanzibar years

Kerri Camar Chandler was born on September 28, 1969 in East Orange, New Jersey, into a family of jazz musicians. His father, Joseph Chandler, was a DJ who introduced him to soul, disco and the underground sounds of New York. In a 2005 Red Bull Music Academy lecture in Seattle he said he started in East Orange when his dad used to DJ everywhere, that his grandparents made him take piano lessons as a child, and that his father's record room held roughly six or seven thousand records, which he worked through in two or three days and later received as a gift.

At 13 he began playing records at the Rally Racquet Club in East Orange, and at 14 he began interning in studios and producing. From 15 to 19 he worked on the staff of Club Zanzibar in Newark, where Tony Humphries was the resident, and he also DJed at Club America around the corner, under the same owner. In his early edits he used tape machines and razor blades to make versions to play in the club. In the late 1980s he began modifying analog equipment, starting with a TR-808 that Studio Electronics fitted with MIDI, a practice he calls Chandlerizing.

Records and labels

His first single, "Super Lover", came out around 1990 or 1991; Wikipedia gives 1991 in its text and 1990 in its discography. His first international show was at the Ministry of Sound in London in 1991. Madhouse Records, founded in 1992 with the label executive Mel Medalie according to Wikipedia, ceased operations in July 2023 after 31 years and was absorbed by Champion Records; a sister label, MadTech, was announced in May 2012 as a springboard for younger producers. He founded a third label, Kaoz Theory, in 2016.

His albums include Hemisphere (1996), Kaoz on King Street (1997), First Steps with Dennis Ferrer (1999), Kerri's Jazz Cafe (2000), Saturday with Jerome Sydenham (2001), Trionisphere (2003), Computer Games (2008), The Thing for Linda 2010 and Spaces and Places (2022). Truants calls his 1993 Atmosphere EP a blueprint for early-1990s tri-state house. He won the DJ Award for Best House DJ in 2019.

Playing and building

Chandler has held a residency at Circoloco in Ibiza and names DC10 in Ibiza as his best club experience and Roy Ayers as his favorite collaborator. He was streaming sets before Boiler Room made it common and put holograms in clubs, according to XLR8R in 2016. He has worked with Native Instruments on its Stems format, with Pioneer and Novation, and helped develop the DJR 400 mixer made by E&S, and says he owns about 36 Technics turntables. Wikipedia calls him a pioneer within house music.