…a style that boarders on dubbed-out abstract New York disco…’ BBC Music

“Milk and two sugars, please!” A sentence every tea boy loves to hear. Back
in the days this was a classic position for every youngling who wanted to
make his way into the music recording industry. It must have been the same
for a man like Stevie Kotey in his tender years. While working for Audio One
Studios in Soho, London, he learnt his trade from scratch and his belief in
being part of the music industry was cemented. Lucky us! Since then, Stevie
Kotey has been on the forefront of British underground dance music in all
the various shapes, forms and sizes, you can only imagine and wish for.
Brought up in a time, where definitions, scenes and sounds were looser than
today, this man managed to remain a free spirit. Be it during the nineties
with the wonderful trio Akwaaba (together with Paul ‘Mudd’ Murphy and Tom
Lee) and their organic take on all things disco or on his own with one of
his charming disguises like Afrobutt, Darkfader or Big Bear; the later one
being also the name of Kotey’s initial label. Picking up the echelon and the
blades of traditional edit smithies like Black Cock or Noid, Big Bear was
the place that cherished the art of a creative (insert disco, balearic,
cosmic, pop here) edit in dry times. Infected with and influenced by the
anything-goes-as-long-as-it-flows aesthetics by disc jockeys like the
surfing DJ Harvey and his first disciples, the notorious Idjut Boys, Kotey
developed an impressive style of his own and an exciting label conglomerate.
Under the Bear Entertainment umbrella, kids like Bear Funk and Hairy Claw
rapidly grew up and it was there, where a wider audience heard names like
Todd Terje, DJ Kent, Prins Thomas & Lindstrom, Brennan Green, Michoacan or
Lexx for the first time. Extremely well packaged and mastered, the Bear
labels are handled with that special care that every vinyl outfit should
get.

On top of that, our main man was never a lazy one, when it came to his own
original productions or remixes. Always dipping and diving into all things
nice, Stevie Kotey never ceased to amaze with his sheer versatility. His
aforementioned education led to musical merits that could be house music as
well as electro or rocky disco takes on other days. You can spend a rainy
afternoon on Discogs going through his efforts in this field.While doing so,
chances are second to none that you miss his connection to the mighty
Chicken Lips. Dean Meredith and Andy Meecham listened to Kotey’s Dj skills
one night and decided that this man sounded exactly like they were hoping
to. Glitzy disco balls, drum machines, current cub sounds, electro funk and
dubby sounds of all sorts, all come to life, when this man steps behind the
tables that turn.Being the chilled and home-loving mates they are, Stevie
was taken on board as a DJ and eventually production partner which resulted
in a fabulous DJ-Kicks compilation for !K7. Between catering his sounds to
Europe’s and the UK’s hippest spots or far-off places like Japan and honing
his dexterity more and more, Kotey is one of the lovely key-players of
today’s leftfield disco scene and 2008 will be busier than ever for him. The
long-awaited label compilation Rools for Rules (mixed by Kotey and DJ Kent),
Disco Italia (rare Italion boogie and disco funk) for the re-animated Strut
platform and his first artist album in years based on a whole week of live
drum recordings in different tempos are finally in the pipeline. A true bear
knows no hibernation. Roooooooar!