Theo Parrish

For the last thirty years, Theo Parrish has been a singular producer, an influential remixer, and a cornerstone of the hardy and prolific Detroit house music scene. Beyond his solo work, Parrish is the founder of the label Sound Signature and a member of the house music supergroup 3 Chairs, along with Moodymann, Rick Wilhite, and Marcellus Pittman. Respected as much for his seamless sets spanning disco, jazz, soul, funk, and blues as for his cultural leadership, Parrish has spent his career at the forefront of a movement to retain electronic dance music’s original identity as a proudly—and defiantly—Black art form. 

Born in 1972 in Washington, DC, and raised in the nascent house music scene of Chicago’s South Side, Parrish relocated to Detroit in the 1990s, where he met the legendary Moodymann (born Kenny Dixon Jr.), who became a personal mentor. In 1997, Parris released his first 12˝ on Dixon’s label, KDJ, and founded his own, Sound Signature. By the early 2000s he held a residency at APT in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District and had become a superstar on the global DJ jet set, building on the buzz around his own productions as well as his “Ugly Edits”—a series of unlicensed reworks of dance floor classics that he began releasing samizdat-style with spray-painted label artwork. His most recent release is Free Myself with Maurissa Rose (Sound Signature, 2023).