WHILE IN NEW YORK, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with one of my musical idols, Kevin Hedge. He makes up the other half (along with Josh Milan) of the songwriting/production team Blaze. Their soulful brand of House music has been around for over 20 years, and they've worked with some of the industries' heavyweights such as Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Babyface and Masters at Work. In 2005 they wrote and produced the House anthem "Most Precious Love" sung by Barbara Tucker, and were recently contracted to create a musical selection for Cirque du Soleil. In 2007 Blaze's remixes of "Dreamgirls" songs "Listen" and "Family" have been heating up dancefloors across the world.

Kevin Hedge is also president and co-owner of the esteemed West End Records in New York City, an institution responsible for introducing the world to some of the newest and most exciting artists and producers in the soulful dance market. In the past year he has embarked on creating a House music magazine called Listen very much similar to 5 Magazine, and then subsequently launched a new record label called Blaze Imprints.

Songwriter, producer, entrepreneur... DJ can be added to the list of his talents. After years playing with Timmy Regisford at the legendary Club Shelter, Kevin alongside Grammy award winner Louie Vega currently spins at a three-year strong residency called ROOTS in New York's Cielo nightclub.

While sitting at the West End offices, I found Kevin to be warm, funny, very humble, and he had some very interesting insight into what can be a very complicated industry.

Can you tell me a little bit about your background?

I'm originally from Newark, New Jersey. The musical training I have is listening to soul records in the living room of my mother's house.

What type of music were you drawn to right away?

Obviously soul, I'm a child of the '70s, so I grew up listening to all the '70s greats like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Donnie Hathaway - you name it. All of the usual suspects.

Did you know you were going to grow up having a musical career?

I thought I was going to be a football player for the Dallas Cowboys! But around 12, 13, I went to an event at my grammar school, and there was a DJ there by the name of Terrance Cooper, and that gentleman was doing his thing and the crowd was loving it. Ever since then, I felt the need to make people happy. And that's what DJing is: your job is to make people happy.

My mom gave me some turntables for my sophomore year in high school. I just started practicing from there, playing records of that day - records from Salsoul, West End, Prelude and the other hit labels from that day. And from there it just turned into a passion for DJing and entertaining people and making them feel good. Making them happy. Changing peoples moods, changing their lives. That's really what it's about it's about. I just felt the need to make the world a better place. That's really no BS - that's really what I live on today.

So what's your philosophy when you play for the crowd? Do you feel you have to "educate" them the way some DJs feel they have to?

No, when I'm in the DJ booth my job is to keep the crowd happy. Point blank. So if I'm working at Cielo or at Portugal at one of the festivals, I'm subject to finding music within my musical tastes that will make that crowd happy.

What are those musical tastes?

Well I'm pretty much a soul kid. I did a festival in Belgrade with about 4,000 people. After all night, they've been listening to all this techno, and I come on playing James Brown and classics like that and they're moving to our kind of soul music. They loved it.

When you're DJing at a party, what's the goal of the party? To have fun. So if the DJ is not really paying attention to the crowd, and they're just doing their own thing, it's no fun.