Imitated Never Duplicated

by Detroit's Filthiest from Detroit, USA

Breaks Drum & Bass Electro Other

Song Page Email the artist View Artist's Page

Detroit’s Filthiest (Julian Shamou) began DJing as a teenager in Detroit in the mid-90s and has gone on to produce over 100 tracks under multiple aliases including DJ Nasty, Digitek, 313 Bass Mechanics and these days, Detroit’s Filthiest. Originally born in Bagdad, Shamou and his family moved to Detroit in the summer of 1983, just before the dawn of techno. Despite growing up in Detroit during the ‘80s and ‘90s, Shamou never planned on a career in electronic music. “All the music that I liked, you could only get on 12″ records; they wouldn’t make it on CD,” he says of his early record collecting days. “I just wanted to have this music. I was buying vinyl for a year before I bought a $99 turntable. A year after I bought that turntable, I bought a drum machine and thought, this is more exciting. I want to make music.” Shamou soon became a part of the city’s emerging Ghettotech scene in the late ‘90s, working primarily under the alias DJ Nasty. In 2002 he released ‘Pass Out’ under his 313 Bass Mechanics alias for Ed DMX’s Breakin Records. Fast-forward to 2015 and platinum selling UK house dons, Disclosure sample it for their massive ‘Bang That’ track. Today, Detroit’s Filthiest continues to push boundaries with his music production. Refusing to stick within just one genre he makes hip hop beats, bouncing electro bombs, smooth house cuts, warehouse techno and booty shaking tracks as his Motor City Electro Company imprint (MCEC), which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019, continues to channel his creative output and Detroit’s Filthiest becomes his main production alias. As well as releases on MCEC, he has also released on the likes of Defected (with the smash ‘Handprint’), Casa Voyager, Bass Agenda, Philthtrax, Moveltraxx, Defrostatica, RotterHague Records and many more.