Along with
Masters at Work partner
"Little" Louie Vega,
Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez was one of the biggest figures in house music, and one of the prime connections between the underground and the mainstream. Together,
Gonzalez and
Vega produced and remixed an endless list of tracks that made an indelible impact upon dance music. With salsa, disco, and house acting as the primary common specialties the two shared,
Gonzalez brought his immersion in rap music to the table, while
Vega came from a freestyle angle. The duo helmed full-length albums, including some under the
Masters at Work name, in addition to one with their ambitious
Nuyorican Soul project. Apart from
MAW,
Gonzalez scored a huge crossover hit with the 1995 single "The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)," released under his disco-house alias
the Bucketheads. He's released numerous 12"s of breakbeats and rhythm tracks, as well as compilations and mix CDs dedicated to all of his myriad influences, particularly hip-hop (1998's Hip Hop Forever), disco (1992's Disco Heat), and '80s boogie (Roller Boogie 80's, 2004).
Like
Vega, the Brooklyn-born
Gonzalez was prolific on his own before and during the partnership, and started out as a DJ. In the '80s,
Gonzalez founded the Dope Wax label while doing production for several New York dance labels, including Big Beat, Cutting, Nervous, and Strictly Rhythm (home to his releases as the Untouchables).
Masters at Work actually began around this time, originating as a partnership between
Gonzalez and Mike Delgado; the two organized parties under the name. A few years after
Gonzalez aligned himself with
Vega, he established
the Bucketheads, a studio project that released a string of extremely successful singles and a full-length. Both "The Bomb" and "Got Myself Together" topped Billboard's U.S. club chart, and appeared on 1995's All in the Mind full-length.
Gonzalez released several solo productions under his own name throughout the early 2000s, through the Tu Chicks, Freeze, and TNT labels. His skills as a DJ were demonstrated with a pair of impressive releases for the U.K.'s BBE label, too: 1998's Hip Hop Forever was a triple-disc set, including an early-'90s-centric mix on one disc and the selections in full on the other two. The similarly formatted Disco Heat came four years later, and focused on underground disco and house classics from the late '70s. Throughout the remainder of the decade, he was a go-to DJ for quality mix albums. His highlights included Roller Boogie 80's (Traffic, 2004), Life:Styles (Harmless, 2004), Randy Muller's Best (Plaza, 2005), Choice: A Collection of Classics (Azuli, 2006), and Mixes P&P Records (P&P, 2007).
Along with Terry Hunter,
Gonzalez formed
Mass Destruction; their eponymous 2009 full-length included guest vocals by
Byron Stingily and
Lidell Townsell. 2010 compilation House Masters compiled two discs' worth of production and remix highlights from throughout
Gonzalez's career. In 2011, he produced rapper
Rasheed Chappell's album
Future Before Nostalgia, released by Kay-Dee Records, the label
Gonzalez co-founded with fellow cratedigger
Keb Darge. The label also released Wild Style Breakbeats, a 2014 set consisting of
Gonzalez' edits of breakbeats featured in the classic old-school hip-hop film Wild Style, spread across seven 7" singles. The producer continued releasing house singles on his own Dope Wax imprint, and returned to Strictly Rhythm with 2017 single "Talk Dirty," featuring vocalist
Roland Clark. ~ Andy Kellman