Kurtis el Khaleel (Arabic: خليل) (born September 4, 1965, in Jamaica), known by the stage name Kurtis Mantronik, is an American hip-hop, electro funk, and dance music artist, DJ, remixer, and producer. Mantronik was the former leader, DJ, and keyboardist of the influential 1980s hip hop and electro-funk group Mantronix. Currently, Mantronik lives in Britain, where he has produced and remixed house and techno music tracks by artists such as Junio...
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Kurtis el Khaleel (Arabic: خليل) (born September 4, 1965, in Jamaica), known by the stage name Kurtis Mantronik, is an American hip-hop, electro funk, and dance music artist, DJ, remixer, and producer. Mantronik was the former leader, DJ, and keyboardist of the influential 1980s hip hop and electro-funk group Mantronix. Currently, Mantronik lives in Britain, where he has produced and remixed house and techno music tracks by artists such as Junior Senior, Kylie Minogue, Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, Michael Gray, Victoria Beckham, Liberty X, and Mim.
Mantronik was born in Jamaica to a Syrian Jamaican father and a Jamaican mother. He emigrated to Canada with his family at age 7, before eventually settling in New York City in 1980 at age 15.
While working as the in-store DJ for Downtown Records in Manhattan, Mantronik met Haitian-born, Brooklyn-based emcee MC Tee (né Touré Embden) in 1984. The duo soon made a demo, and eventually signed with William Socolov's Sleeping Bag Records....
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