The Soul Providers. DJ's Jason Papillon and Ian "45" Carey make up the Baltimore, Maryland USA based production/DJ team known as THE SOUL PROVIDERS. Both in their twenties, they produce some of the most energetic and soulful house music out of their downtown Baltimore studio. They are highly acclaimed in the house music scene for their soulful yet moving disco sound. They met through hip-hop/reggae DJ and promoter DJ LEGACEY ,at a club where Jason and LEGACEY worked together in 1997. After one night at the club, DJ 45 became a weekly DJ with Jason and LEGACEY. Ian would play underground hip-hop and Baltimore style club music. Jason played anything from trip hop, funky breaks to hard house and reggae. LEGACEY and his HARDWEAR PRODUCTIONS crew would finish the night with reggae , hip-hop and R&B. Ian was the promoter and DJ two nights a week at another club, both nights with a large consistent hip-hop and R&B crowd. Due to the violence that often comes with large hip-hop clubs ,Ian decided to take a chance and change Fri. night to a house music night. This was Ian and Jason's 1st residency, CLUB MIDNIGHT(now closed) and birth of THE SOUL PROVIDERS. Their name came from the many nights of PROVIDING SOUL at the club. Ian's choice of house music has always been garage from the beginning. Although Jason admits he hated vocal's and preferred hard instrumental records, after actually listening to what the songs were about, he was instantly hooked. At the time this the only Friday night spot where you could hear good underground garage in the Baltimore/Washington area. They quickly became very popular in the local house community. Often they would submit mix tapes to Morgan State University radio 88.9 "THE UNDERGROUD EXPERIENCE" ran by DJ POPE & DJ OJI a.k.a. THE BROTHERS IN THE STRUGGLE. Between the radio mix shows, the club and giving away mixed tapes their popularity grew, giving them opportunities to do guest spots out of town at bigger clubs. Djing at bigger clubs for more people meant the crowd had higher expectations. Coming from Baltimore meant they had to measure up to dj's such as TEDDY DOUGLASS ,DJ SPEN and DJ FEELGOOD. In order to please clubers, they began making their own personal re-mixes of songs as past great DJ's traditionally have done. This made other DJ's and producers begin to take notice of their production skills. After careful planning they decided to invest in studio equipment March 1998. There first song was "TANGO" bb30 BASEMENT BOYS records released Nov.99. "TANGO" became a club hit and gave the SOUL PROVIDERS a big buzz on their name. They often look back and laugh at the success of "TANGO" because of the equipment it was made with. Next came "RISE" lay014 LOOK AT YOU records, az110 AZULI records, ocn029 OCEAN TRAX records URBAN/UNIVERSAL records urbdj 2086 and various mix CD compilations world wide, including Ministry of Sounds' "Dance Nation 9". February 2000 they started their own record label élan records. élan plans to capture the world and become one of the greatest labels ever.