Why do you think people are drawn to remixes of R&B music?

This is going to be controversial but I'll let you have a little controversy! [laughs] I think because House Music is being produced by DJs first. When Josh and I came up, we came up during the "songwriters period". When you listen to the music of West End, Salsoul, Prelude - that's the music my teeth were cut on as far as dance music. All of that music is based on songs. So Josh and I grew up on a songwriters' aesthetic. If we were going to make a track, a song had to go with it.

Moving forward in time to when tracks became really popular - when Roger S., Pal Joey and those guys started to come through around '90, '91 - a lot of today's producers were bred from there. But I'm 40 years old now and bred from the time that songwriters played records.

You guys have it backwards when you guys were doing your thing with Chicago House. But "Promised Land" is a really great song! "You Used To Hold Me" is a really great song! Sin City made incredible songs!

I guess the worldwide exposure of House Music came because of the language barrier. See, if you made just a track, then the beat could move everybody around the world. If you were in Japan you didn't have to worry about understanding the lyrics. I believe that's why instrumental House music transitioned like that.

Like the tracky, jack music Chicago is so famous for? Do you like that style?

Of course, I played it back in the '80s! However the songwriting aesthetic has been moved out of it. You don't hear a lot of great songs.

So fast forward to now, with major labels - I think they're incredibly smart. They just put the acapella out for whoever wants to snatch it and use it. When you're doing a remix for a major label and you decide to bootleg it, you're really doing the major label the biggest favor. Because it's free promotion for them, for their artist, for their act.

Leela James was out for a long time. When Quentin [Harris] bootlegged the remix that he did (which was a great remix), it just made her more popular.

What about with Dreamgirls? When you first saw the movie or heard the soundtrack, did you immediately know what to do?

No. I didn't even think about it. It wasn't until Sony BMG contacted us to do the remixes. People think everything's a bootleg. I would never have touched those records or those songs. Those acapellas aren't even available.

First they contacted me to do Beyonce's "Listen". We got the "Listen" parts back in September before the movie even came out! Then they gave us the Sunshine Anderson to do. Then they said, "We want to do dance remixes to release a CD in conjunction with releasing a DVD." So they contacted us to do all of them. Josh and I decided to pick the songs that we thought could work, because there were songs on there that were "Heavy Heavy" and could never be a dance record.

What did you think when you heard "Family"?

"Family" I thought was going to be an excellent House record because traditionally the theme of House Music is world unity. So just that hook alone...

What about "And I Am Telling You?"

I didn't want to remix that because that was the most obvious. Sony BMG is going to let us license our remixes for release through the new Blaze Imprints, our new record label.

Can you tell me more about that?

It's separate from West End and primarily a soulful House label. Strictly focused on soul, and records that I personally pick to be released.