“Learn the History”: Dance Music Icons Reflect on WMC’s Legacy & the Magic of Rekids

On a balmy spring afternoon, poolside at the Kimpton Epic hotel in downtown Miami, Radio Slave gave revelers a taste of how WMC used to do it – sunny day parties with an eclectic lineup of legends. Celebrating 20 years of his beloved label Rekids, the British music lover (in partnership with Beatport Live and WMC) gathered friends and fellow house legends Anja Schneider, DJ Minx, Doc Martin and Danny Tenaglia alongside buzzy upstarts William Kiss and Tal Fussman for a day of hot tunes, B2Bs and big smiles. As the party carried on outside, we sat down with each of these OGs to hear their favorite memories of WMCs of yesteryear, discuss the magic of Rekids and much more.

Of the bunch, New York legend Tenaglia has been going to WMC for the longest, dating back to the second one in 1986. (He moved to Miami in 1985, where he opened legendary club Groove Jet in 1994, immortalized in Spiller's 2000 namesake hit featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Boris Dlugosch broke the unreleased instrumental at the club at WMC 1999, inspiring the name.) Radio Slave (AKA Matt Edwards) first came to WMC in 2001, DJ Minx in 2004, Anja Schneider in 2006, and Doc Martin in 1992.

"That was when all the originators were out there spinning in the sand; it was the best feeling ever," Detroit's DJ Minx reflects on her early WMC visits. "I remember Louie Vega's beach parties and getting in all the clubs for free, enjoying cocktails and having full-on parties all day. It wasn't as commercialized. I loved it so much, I miss those days. I started coming every year after that."

WMC Was About Breaking Records

"We all congregated on-site [at WMC]. It was always good to see people from all over that you hadn't seen since the year before. So it was a great meeting place, and it was good to be there to break music, move music, and to get handed vinyl to check out once you got home. We all carried record bags so we could collect vinyl," Minx added.

Long before Shazam, smart phones and Beatport, dance records took longer to build momentum, in large part because DJs had to acquire physical records. WMC was a vital launchpad for new tunes and budding stars, so reps from major label's dance divisions and DJs from around the world jockeyed to be a part of the next big track. Producers would scramble to have new music ready for their sets, labels would time releases with the parties, money was ready to spend on signing, and record bags were open to collect white labels, all in hopes of landing (or even just hearing) the big tune of the conference. By the end of summer, hot records broken at WMC would have echoed out at clubs around the world.

Some of these euphoric anthems are so ubiquitous – Stardust's "Music Sounds Better With You" (1998), Ultra Naté's "Free" (1997), and "Music Is The Answer" by Danny Tenaglia and Celeda (1998), to name just a few—it's difficult to imagine dance floors without them. Imagining yourself among the first people to hear "Music Sounds Better With You" – played by pre-helmets Daft Punk, nonetheless – is pure rave fantasy and WMC 1998 reality.

"That was the magic about coming here, you would hear different things from all over the world. Coming from San Francisco, we had our own bugged out sounds," Doc Martin says. "We all had our secret weapons. People from New York had records you weren't going to hear for three or four months. I remember hearing "Plastic Dreams" for the first time here. They made sure every top DJ had it – except for us – and X-Press 2's Muzik Xpress. I showed up with an acetate of Eddie Amador's "House Music."

Given that WMC has been around since house and techno's early days, it's a mirror to electronic music's shifts. Until the launch of the Pioneer CDJ-1000 in 2001, vinyl DJing was the norm, and IDing tracks you heard, especially if they lacked vocals, as Minx points out, could be wild goose chase. Collecting vinyl, and later CDs, at WMC was a treasure hunt for the latest dance floor weapons.  

"I used to make CDRs and bring them to Miami with all the latest stuff. You could still go to a party and walk away with a lot of records. That was still the currency. The last time I played [vinyl] records here was maybe 2006. There were crazy afterparties, really weird parties on the beach in small hotels. It seemed a lot more free-spirited, less organized and commercial—even though there was money," Edwards reflects. "I never came here in the '90s, but you'd read about it in all the magazines, it was a big deal."

WMC Is About Gathering Together

While the mechanics of how dance music spreads and how DJs find their new favorite record has changed drastically from WMC's record-breaking days, the importance of gathering together has not.

"Going to one place and meeting all these producers I loved like Doc Martin, Miguel Migs, [Mousse T.'s] Peppermint Jam, I was over the moon. At that time, I didn't think that I would ever be on their DJ level. Looking up to them and me being a colleague of theirs now is the greatest thing," Minx reflects. As we made our way to the pool party after her panel with Edwards and two industry professionals titled "Beatport Presents: DJs are the Original Influencers," eager fans clamored at their chance to say hi to a legend.

You're doing something right when DJs clearly want to hang out beyond their required set time or appearance date. I spied Armin van Buuren milling about the conference floor long after his noon panel, and Berlin legend Schneider dancing to the end of the pool party, despite helming the earliest set and donning cool-yet-uncomfortable shoes.

"For me, [WMC] is always about connecting because sometimes you live in your bubble, you play your own gigs. It's always lovely to be at a festival or in a club where I have the possibility of listening to other DJs. I don't go out like I did back in the day. But I'm always open to discover new things, this didn't change," Schneider affirms. "When I'm [DJing] a party like this with Rekids, listening to Doc Martin and Tal Fussman, Minx and Radio Slave, it's always inspiring… As I get older, my priorities change, but my passion hasn't."

If it's not for the love of the music, dance floor and the fellow DJs and producers that have inspired you and supported your music, what's the point?

Gotta Get Those Rekids

Let's set the record straight – its pronounced wreck-ids, i.e. records in British English. Schneider, Tenaglia, Minx and Martin all reflect fondly on Rekids and Edwards, citing his great taste and passion for music as core to the label's longevity and success.

"Matt and I are similar in a lot of ways, like not just being focused on one style of music. He is a master of the studio of both techno and house. I've been a fan of his work for a long time, and now he's just knocking them out left and right on his label. Matt, I can't keep up. There's other people's music I want to play too," Tenaglia exclaims with a laugh.

While Edwards has sold the entirety of his surely enviable record collection (that was gathering dust in storage), his connection to the music, like the other OGs we spoke to, is as strong as ever.

"[I love] every track Matt releases. For 20 years, he's really been a tastemaker, and I adore him," Schneider gushes. "There're so many great artists on Rekids. Every record on Rekids is my favorite."

As for Edwards, he still loves the early stuff he released from a then-burgeoning Nina Kraviz, including her "really personal [2012 debut] album," as well as Matt O'Brien's 2006 heater "Serotone," the prolific label's tenth release, and a big tune at WMC 20 years ago.

"I think it's extremely healthy that labels like Rekids are involved with WMC because they bring you another side of music, which attracts people that don't come here for the commercial stuff," Matt says. "The thing about Miami is we had all these underground parties before to go to and then, for a while, it was just the Top 10 DJs and the big clubs. It just became a money thing. I'm really happy that Beatport did this [party]."

Celebrate The Legends

Although Minx put out the minimal classic "Walk in the Park" on Richie Hawtin's deeply influential Minus imprint back in 2004 and was DJing her native Detroit's underground parties, she wasn't taken seriously. "It was a fight to be recognized," the Women on Wax founder tells us. And while she crafted it in a swift 40-minutes, she struggled to find her musical voice while working full-time at General Motors and raising a family with a partner who belittled her DJ pursuits.

In recent years, she's begun to get long-overdue recognition, and has found her flow with a sassy, lively brand of house. (See "Blocked") WMC 2026 was a full-circle moment for the "Energy" producer, who shared her hard-won OG DJ knowledge alongside Edwards during their mainstage panel, afterwards sharing a sunset B2B slot with the Rekids founder at the pool party.

During the panel, her advice for up-and-coming DJs was mic-drop worthy: "Learn about the history of this music, period, especially depending on what kind you want to play. Do your research, find out about artists and learn from them."

Now that her hard-won recognition is here, her triumphant WMC is one she certainly doesn't take for granted. "It almost brings me to tears, to be perfectly honest. Like I said, I never thought I'd see anything like this [in my DJ career]," Minx says during our conversation.

And while there are more women being (mostly) taken on the global DJ/producer stage, from Charlotte de Witte and Sara Landry to TSHA and Honey Dijon, the boy's club still needs to be shaken up. "I think there is more recognition of women. I still feel there needs to be more women on festival lineups and talent should be looked at," Minx adds.

Minx, Schneider (who just dropped an excellent collab), Edwards, Tenaglia and Martin are here to stay and to keep dropping bops (and wisdom) as they uplift the next generation. And if you take just one lesson from them, may it be to stay true to yourself, whatever that means to you now.

"We've all been in this business more than 20 years, we've seen so many changes. But that people survive, they're always authentic," Schneider posits.