It took about two decades for them to catch up, but the recent resurgence of mainstream interest in Hip House and Acid has brought a new respect to the early recordings of our man in Germany (tha produca awesome supa dupa troopa!), Tyree Cooper. For those of us in Chicago, though, Tyree has been on our tables since “I Fear the Night” in 1986 and still going strong with releases on his own Supa Dupa Records and a solid touring schedule.

Here’s a cut-up from Rees Urban’s September 2008 interview with Tyree, on the making of “I Fear the Night”:

Well, myself, Mike Dunn and Hugo H., we had been friends for the last 100,000 years [laughs]… These guys are my brothers. We used to run this club called “My House”. It was called the Sheba Disco at first. That’s where people like Lil’ Louis and Lil’ John used to get their start from back in the day. It was like 87th & Ashland. We took it over – me and Mike slept in that place. We were into that club. We slept in that MF, because we threw our parties in there.

Mike met Marshall [Jefferson] first and Marshall asked if he could bring his equipment to the club. A 707, 808, 727, 303 – everything Marshall had…

We were like, “Since you’re not using this 808, can we give you $20 and borrow it for like a week?” Marshall said, “Yeah, aight man, cool, I’m not using it right now.” We had the MF for like six months! It went between me, Mike & Hugo. We had that for a while.

Eventually Marshall was like, “Where’s my 808?” “Oh, Mike’s got it.” Mike would say, “Hugo’s got it.” Hugo would say, “No, Mike’s got it,” or “No, Tyree’s got it.”

Then I got it and gave it back to him. So “I Fear The Night” came up out of that. I just wanted to do a record and have a drum machine. Me, Hugo and Mike worked on the drums but by the time I got to the studio I couldn’t remember which patterns were which, so I had to try to figure it out. It would have come out a bit different if I remembered the patterns. I think the second part of it with the snare rolls was Hugo’s influence. I’m not even too sure. I lost the tape with the shit that was on it.

From there, I just called up DJ International and said, “Hey, I got a tune I want to play for y’all.” I was kind of going down there anyway to pick up records from Benji [Espinoza]. I was trying to get free records.

 

On iTunes On HearThis On Mixcloud

01: Tyree – Slow Dance
02: Aziz & Tyree – Reckless
03: Urban Legendz – Harlem
04: Jack – Can’t Fake the Funk
05: Orlando Voorn ft. Blake Baxter – Love Break
06: Melissa Rapp & Amit Shoham – Lapsed
07: UPZ ft. Rasu – Noiz (Abicah Soul Remix)
08: ? – Agave Love (Phil R Vocal Mix)
09: Tyree – Just Feel It
10: Marshall Jefferson ft. Curtis McClaine – Satisfaction
11: Mina Jackson – Pray
12: K Alexi – You Are (Maurice Joshua Remix)
13: B Rude – It’s House Part 3
14: Peven Everett – Special/Simmer
15: Uncle Milty/Joshua (IZ) – Ode to Lillian Violin
16: Tyree – New Hardcore HipHouse
17: Dennis Ferrer – Hey Hey

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