DJ Icey

DJ Icey, (born Eddie Pappa), is an American DJ, electronic music producer, and remixer, credited by Allmusic as having helped to "jump-start the increasingly fertile dance scene in and around Orlando, FL, during the '90s".E, the Incredibly Strange History of Ecstasy credits him as "the prime founder of the Funky Breaks and the Florida Breaks. 1999's Rave America indicates that "the preoccupation with backbeats" characteristic of the Orlando sound was developed by DJ Icey.Rolling Stone writes that DJ Icey was "one of the original Florida DJs responsible for kick-starting the American progressive house and trance scene".

Biography

Icey was born in Florida. Originally named DJ Icee, he had to change his name because a local Orlando ice cream manufacturing company by the same name threatened to sue him. Known for marrying the diverse strands of Chicago Hip house and English break-beat house, he rose to prominence DJing for the now defunct Orlando club The Edge, a position he held from 1991 to 1996. In 1993, he created his own label, Zone, named in honor of the UK labels O-Zone and D-Zone. In 2000, CMJ New Music Monthly described him as "an expert in funky, sped-up hip-hop", and by 2001, Billboard was listing him along with Crystal Method, DJ Micro and Überzone as "perennial figure[s] in the burgeoning funky breaks underground scene."