Leroy Burgess, aka the “Prince of Boogie” has a career over a half century long working under an array of pseudonyms often with producer and songwriters Patrick Adams (P&P Records) and Greg Carmichael (Red Greg Records). Burgess’ sound is best known for his  synth-laden, mid-tempo productions (somewhere between 96 - 116 BPM) of the early to mid-’80s that became known as boogie.

The term boogie can be traced to London in the 80’s and by the middle of the decade the term was common in London’s club scene BECOMING a genre all it’s own. Burgess says “This was the music we were used to uptown in Harlem—not as hyper as disco.”

This sound is most prevalent in the singles “Let’s Do It” “You’ve Got That Something” “Heartbreaker” “Sweet Thing”  and “I Know You Will” under a number of monikers including Conversion, Logg, Fantastic Aleems, and Black Ivory. 

Burgess also either wrote, performed, arranged, and/or produced groups like Bumblebee Unlimited, Inner Life, Universal Robot Band, and Phreek as well as Garage classics like Class Action’s “Weekend”, Caprice’s “100%” and Fonda Rae’s “Over Like A Fat Rat”. 

Why so many aliases? 

Burgess says he remained less focused on the individual and more focused on the music: “We figured out the formula of feel good and put it in..” compositions that differed from the disco scene by infusing jazz and blues, creating something that became his unique style, unmatched, but often imitated.