CRAIG LOFTIS IS ONE of the unsung heroes of House Music. A jack-of-all-trades in the truest sense, his musical career ps three decades since he first got involved as a kid back in 1979. He began as a party promoter with the well-known social club Vertigo (known to older heads for their phenomenal parties). While mastering the turntables and doing his part to shape the new sound lighting up Chicago's club scene, he was in collaboration with Frankie Knuckles, redesigning the sound system for the Power Plant (he later redesigned the lighting and sound systems for The Baton Show Lounge and Re Doubt) as well as becoming Frankie's sound engineer and opening DJ for four years.

In 1988 Craig became chief engineer of DJ International Records, and in the eight years he worked there he engineered, mixed and produced songs for artists such as Fast Eddie, Tyree Cooper, Julian "Jumpin" Perez, Bad Boy Bill, Frankie Hollywood Rodriguez, Joe Smooth and Mike Dunn, to name a few. In 2000 he created Loftwerk Productions, throwing some of the hottest parties in Chicago. The Loftwerk Records label was spawned shortly after with releases such as "Dreamin" and "You Are All I Need."

It was the smash hit "Mary Mary" however that finally garnered him the recognition he so justly deserves. After all these years, he's finally getting his due from this one amazing track - a unique mix of gospel House and hard, percussive beats that's made a twenty-seven year career in House Music appear to be an "overnight success". I remember hearing Craig play "Mary Mary" last year at the Prophouse and the crowd would go nuts. It became a smash hit at this year's Miami Winter Music Conference, and what began as an underground song played mostly in gay clubs has become a favorite of DJs everywhere.

Let's go into your background for the benefit of people who don't know you. Where are you from and how did you get involved in House Music?

I was born here in Chicago. The way I became a DJ was that I used to go to the Warehouse all the time, and this was back when Frankie was in his major heyday and House Music was at an unbelievable peak. It wasn't called House Music then yet. It was disco but a lot of the stuff that was coming out new was not disco. Like "Let's Go Dancing" and Martin Circus. I was in The Warehouse the day Martin Circus was first played and it was like everybody in the whole entire club looked like they were in a trance. Even the people coming down the steps stopped and people were just dancing everywhere. We had never heard that song before.

When were you frequenting the Warehouse?

I didn't get to the Warehouse until 1979, 1980 and that was when it was almost on its way out.

Aside from House, what other music are you partial to?

I like everything. It's just that it's gotta be good. Even hip-hop. I'm not a big hip-hop fan, but if I hear a track and it's good music, then I'll listen to it. My only problem that I have with the hip-hop market right now is how people have become millionaires and major successes with just a simple track that's just so simple that a baby could do it. You have musicians who have been struggling for years just to get a single break, and these kids are coming out with tracks that are so stupid and the rest of the market is jumping on top of it and the industry is pushing it. It's like they're saying, "Your brains can't handle too much. Let's give you this garbage."

Now why do you think hip-hop has the marketability that House doesn't?

The money. Because one, the ghetto aspect of it. I really think that the powers that be focused on the "Let's push this black urban thing that's going to make millions, and we're going to make all this money off of them. And then once we're finished with them we'll kick them to the curb." In one sense, a lot of the black guys that were young entrepreneurs were drug dealers and a lot of them already had business sense. Once they got a little money in their pocket, they took over. They knew how to do business. They had their own record labels, they knew how to start their own clothing lines, all of this stuff. And they've become billionaires.

Back in the day, was there anyone who taught you how to DJ?

Well, I used to be part of a group called Vertigo. We threw very hot parties, and the reason our parties were so hot was because we were trying to imitate what was going on at the Warehouse for our age group. We were like 15, 16 years old and weren't supposed to be getting into the Warehouse. We wanted to bring the kids who didn't know about the Warehouse and couldn't sneak off and go - we wanted them see what kind of parties were going on. So we would bring the party to that market.