Nick Monaco began his career as a DJ/Producer at the ripe age of 13, scratching his dad’s prized Queen records. He quickly became a connoisseur of hip-hop culture, studying the old school dogmatically.
At the age of 15, when he could afford a Roland keyboard, he began making hip-hop and r&b beats. As a freshman in high school, Monaco was obsessed with turntablism and anything with the words hip and hop in it.
Rocking house parties is how Monaco spent most weekends in his not so distant adolescence. It was those renegade house parties where he really learned to rock a crowd. The desire to make people dance trumped his desire to awe them with technical scratches.
That spark, coupled with his location guided his production style.Nick Monaco hails from northern California’s Bay Area, the cradle of hella, hyphy, and 808-heavy house. Monaco quickly discovered San Francisco’s dirtybird records who managed to seamlessly weave all three into what he refers to as “hella hyphy house.
”In 2010, Dirtybird resident Worthy found Nick Monaco (who barely broke twenty years old) and eagerly released his first EP ‘Sideshow Tango’ on the highly regarded label, Anabatic Records. The EP is an homage to the local hyphy and house cultures– featuring the East Bay anthem that originally caught Worthy’s attention, ‘That’s Oakland Baby’ and ‘Amame’ (not to mention the popular Worthy remix).
This decade has a lot in store for Monaco, who is ever productive with original releases, remixes, and collaborations. He is finishing up a smashing EP with another baylien, Mr. Spock himself—Ardalan.
Together, they are the freshmen of San Francisco’s new house sound.Monaco’s sound is very friendly to booty’s, hips, and everything in between. His name should make it somewhere into your vocabulary in the near future.
