The house music that Lee built
Lee Burridge has high hopes of becoming a household name in Hong Kong. Whereas he used to be the back-up DJ for a headlining act at one of Hong Kong's international club nights, he will be returning to the SAR this week as the star performer.
The 26-year-old British DJ whose Hong Kong club career started in Lan Kwai Fong is now working with legendary trance and progressive house DJ Sasha, and is resident at the popular London club Malibu Stacey, reputed by some to be London's best night-club. He is also scheduled to tour Australia this year and the United States next year.
He was 'discovered' by Sasha late last year on one of Burridge's trips to play in Hong Kong. 'I got a chance to talk to him when he was here,' said Burridge. 'Later, he called me and asked what I was doing. I told him I was thinking about moving back to the UK. He said I should and that he would help me put some things together, and thankfully he has.' Burridge is now being managed by Sasha and has a regular club night with him. Burridge believes that it is the isolated nature of Hong Kong's club scene that enabled him to have the opportunity to work with a DJ of Sasha's international repute.
'Without Hong Kong I wouldn't be where I am today. It was easier to be discovered in Hong Kong,' he said in a phone interview from London. 'When you're playing with a big DJ here in the UK, you just switch headphones when he comes on. In Hong Kong you have dinner with them, you get to spend time with them. Working in Hong Kong opened a lot of doors.' Burridge is blase about being signed to Sasha's DJ agency. 'Here in England it's Sasha this and Sasha that, so I suppose if I had lived in England I would have looked up to him. Meeting him in Hong Kong, he was just like me. Here he has the press and the work, in Hong Kong I had the press and the work.' So why, out of all the aspiring DJs in Hong Kong, did Sasha choose to take Burridge under his wing? 'I think that Sasha was impressed with me because I play different styles. I play house, hard house, techno, break-beat. He hadn't seen anyone do that before. My style is eclectic. Eclectic is a word everyone bandies about when they talk about my style. For me it's just funky dance music.' As house has progressively gained a following around the world, the sub-categories within the genre have continued to expand. But Burridge believes it will not harm the music itself.
'The music press in England have created most of these labels. They think that they're needed to see the music. They think that you need to put music into categories. It's just house music, labels won't dilute the music at all.' Burridge is particularly excited to return to Hong Kong because of the increasing popularity of club culture in this region. Burridge was one of the early initiators of Hong Kong's club scene. 'When I moved to Hong Kong in 1991, there wasn't much going on in the dance scene. Joel Lai was really the only DJ doing anything different. So a group of us started small parties in Lan Kwai Fong. The scene grew from there. That's when the promoters started to come up.' Burridge believes that over the years, Hong Kong has built up its own distinctive house music scene. 'Being back in England has made me realise how special Hong Kong is. It's a world of its own; the house scene doesn't have the same biases. It has its own style, its own fashion.
'I actually left Hong Kong in 1993 to play in Australia. The scene there was diluted, there was too much going on, so I went back to Hong Kong. There is closeness, you know everybody, and it's a good crowd. The dance scene is incubated from England's, where there are a few leading and everyone else trying to follow. In Hong Kong people are making the scene themselves.' Burridge is confident that the scene will continue to expand, and that it will gain a greater following among the local Chinese population. 'House music is always expanding. I love that I go to a record shop and can pick up something I could never imagine would be made, a hybrid of styles that I would never have imagined.