Maybe your have reached the same stature as him now?

Ah man… I don’t think I could ever go that far, but there were a lot of great DJs around at the time. It was all about the big clubs and the sound systems. You had 10 or 15 clubs the size of The Ministry of Sound and all had amazing DJs. Between 1985-1990 I played the tops clubs in NYC. I was young, 20 years old and I was playing every Friday and Saturday to huge numbers… 2500, 3000 people every weekend.

Do you think that Strictly Rhythm kick started your career, especially with songs like Beautiful People? 

I would say as a producer for house music ,YES, Strictly Rhythm gave me the opportunity to release a lot of the ideas that I had. Mark Finkelstein was the man behind the scenes sorting out all the business side of things, but Glady Pizarro was in charge of the creative part. She was always out, checking out the clubs, checking out what was new, checking out the next thing. Strictly Rhythm and Nervous were very instrumental to my career.

Describe to me as best as you can what is your sound when you play out?

Its hard because a lot of people would say Latin, its not all Latin, It goes from diva vocals to the soul music, to Brazilian music to jazz music, to minimal tracks that I have done. I have done everything over the years.

Music is in a transitional stage at the moment. How is it changing for you… is it getting better or worse?

Obviously the Vinyl that we have had a great run with for the last 15 years is now dwindling and is becoming more of a purist thing. With my releases at Vega Records we still take care of the purists, that is something that is close to my heart because I am a DJ and I still collect Vinyl, even though I play CDs when I’m traveling.

Do you play from Laptop as well?

I have Serrato (DJ mixing software) as well, I can do either, I have done it before… it’s great as you get to carry tons of music. It’s a good time for independents and small labels because you get to sell your tracks digitally around the world from different digital stores, you can promote through the internet, you can sell your records without having to invest tons of money in marketing and production.

You’re a legend yourself, but what artists do you feel are setting the bar now?

I love it when people get creative: Henrik Schwarz, Dennis Ferrer, Ame, Mr V, Alix Alvarez, Will Rodriguez from the West Coast, Frank Roger, Joe Clausell. This crew are coming up with some really crazy things. Even on a mainstream level Bob Sinclar and Martin Solveig, There is a lot of music our there and its up to the DJ to develop his taste to music, the DJ has to make it his thing. That is the sign of a really good DJ: when you identify exactly what his sound is.