Born in St.Louis, Mr. One Hundred’s early dance music education consisted of seriously underage raving at a time when the American Midwest had arguably the best underground party scene in the world. He rolls off a few formative experiences: Richie Hawtin playing live in a warehouse completely covered in black plastic, people doing the worm to a 6am Moodyman set in an abandoned St. Louis strip mall storefront, and Robert Armani DJing an entire set wearing white gloves. He co-founded a label and made deeper connections to Detroit by travelling to the motor city for all the production – every vinyl was mastered by Ron Murphy (the same guy who mastered Kevin Saunderson, Underground Resistance, +8, Derrick May and Jeff Mills). After a tour of duty through Chicago’s art & performance scenes, Mr. One Hundred ended up in London, UK, and was deeply influened by London’s cultural and musical milieu.
Then two things then happened. As Mr. One Hundred explains it, “First I started DJing at the (now legendary) 7 Year Glitch and Teens of Thailand parties where I met Silverlink – he was the first DJ I saw mix soca into Jeff Mills and it blew my mind. Second is I lived next to a Trinidadian-run BBQ chicken shop whose owner Lyndon was an ex-Soca DJ, and he started feeding me mixtapes of his old crew Spoil Bratz. Plus I was going out in London, hearing soca mixed up with other kinds of music, going to carnival, all of that. I decided to experiment with soca rhythms, fusing them with detroit techno sounds to make a new type of music. I tried my first beat, H.O.W. Riddim, and when I played it for Lyndon he just said “Yep, that’s it” and I went from there. Now with the Top Nice crew we’ve created an audience for this new soca sound at our parties, H.O.W. Riddim is on the Mixpak release, and I have a name for what I make: Power Soca music from the future!!!”