About Worship Recordings

Worship Recordings was established in the summer of 1998 in Philadelphia by Rob Paine & Dan Thompson. The concept was simple at first: they just wanted to put out their own music their own way. After the first few releases it became clear that they had dropped in on a genre of house music that has slowly but surely come to fruition, now being labeled by the massive as “dub house” or “dub techno”. They knew they were not the first to use the influence of Jamaican reggae music as a foundation for their house productions, but they definitely wanted to continue to push it to new heights in both the house community and progressive reggae scene. What started out as an in-house production label, Worship soon started to sign like- minded artists such as: Garth, Chris Udoh, Pete Moss, Solomonic Sound, Hakan Lidbo, Jay Tripwire and Grant Dell- just to name a few. Some Worship releases are more dub than house and vice versa – but all releases explore the vibrations of their city of Philadelphia. From the music’s production quality to the legendary KLH art work and right down to the packaging, Worship Recordings stands out from the rest. They continue to explore new methods of using reggae and house music side by side to reach lovers of both sounds and to unite them in the dance hall as ONE.

 

About The Shakedown

The Shakedown started in March 2002 as a Worship Recordings monthly event, one where The Worship crew (DJs Rob Paine, Willyum and Zacharijah) could promote the label on the local level plus all DJ together. A passion of theirs that was quickly integrated into the monthly- out of necessity- was that the party was built around their own quality sound system. So many of the clubs here in Philadelphia sounded just plain terrible!

Therefore the guys took control of that aspect to ensure the dancers and club goers a top notch sound experience. When the party gained steam so did their ideas to grow it, so at that point they came up with a vision to start a new sub-label of Worship called Shakedown, a little more on the jazzy/funky side of the genre, and basically have a ‘raise the EP’ party each month where the label’s artists would come play the event.

The crew pulled this off a couple times, but with the death of the vinyl industry and the explosion of the digital download age (which brought a flood of new labels) they felt the need to more laser focus on just one primary label/brand and at the same time open the scope of the Worship label’s sound a little more.

The Shakedown sub-label faded away, but of course the party remained and the guys opened up the sound system and DJ booth to a wide range of the Internationally acclaimed DJs/artists in the underground house scene that they really respected (and played) at their other gigs- the producers of the tracks Rob, Will and Zack preferred as house DJs.

Ten years later, The Shakedown is known across the country and across the globe as Philadelphia’s top ranking monthly house event.