MK

Detroit, and a remix that outgrew him

Marc Christopher Kinchen was born in Detroit on 3 August 1972 and has been releasing records since 1989, which makes him a contemporary of the city's second techno generation rather than a product of the house revival that later adopted him. His own early records were club records first: he reached number one on the US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 1993 and again in 1994 with "Always" and "Love Changes", both sung by Alana Simon, and the same partnership produced "Burning", a track that stayed underground and became a reference point anyway. Under the alias 4th Measure Men he had a further dance chart hit with "4 You".

What travelled furthest was work done for somebody else. His remix of Nightcrawlers' "Push the Feeling On" reached number three in the UK and detached itself from its parent record entirely, turning a chopped, stuttering vocal into a template that dance producers were still copying twenty years later. He went on to work with Nightcrawlers frontman John Reid on further releases, none of which repeated the chart result. Through the decade he remixed Celine Dion, Jody Watley, Betty Boo and Sofia Shinas, among others, and built a reputation as a reliable hand rather than a name on the front of the sleeve. His own UK chart debut came in January 1995, with "Always".

Fifteen years in other people's rooms

In 2001 Kinchen moved to Los Angeles and began working with David Foster, and by 2002 he was an in-house producer for Will Smith, a job that took in soundtrack work for the film Shark Tale and the sitcom All of Us. He later worked extensively with Pitbull across several albums. It was a mainstream pop and hip-hop career conducted largely at the mixing and engineering end, and it ran for the best part of a decade and a half while the remixes that carried his name stayed in circulation without him.

The practical consequence is that MK came back to dance music as an experienced studio technician rather than a nostalgia act, which partly explains why the second half of his career has been more commercially successful than the first.

The return, and Area10

The pivot point was November 2013, when his remix of Storm Queen's "Look Right Through" went to number one on the UK Singles Chart — a remix credit again, but one that put him back in front of a British audience that had grown up on "Push the Feeling On" without knowing who made it.

His own "17", released in 2017, topped the UK dance chart and reached number seven on the main singles chart, and for several years it was his most successful record under his own name. He built the Area10 imprint around his output and his parties. In February 2023 came "Rhyme Dust" with the Australian producer Dom Dolla, a track built on a Q-Tip sample and released through Area10 with Big On Blue and Sony Music UK; it charted across several territories and won Best Dance/Electronic Release at the 2023 ARIA Awards. By then MK was a festival headliner rather than a club booking, and the gap between his touring profile and his chart profile had become conspicuous.

"Dior", and a thirty-year wait

That gap closed on 11 July 2025, when "Dior", featuring the Bolton singer Chrystal, reached number one on the Official Singles Chart. It was his first UK number one, arriving thirty years and six months after his chart debut in January 1995 — one of the longest waits the Official Charts Company has recorded. He had three UK top tens and six UK top forties behind him and nothing at the summit. It held the position for a second consecutive week.

The record itself is unshowy: a deep house track released on 6 June 2025 through Sony Music UK and Ultra Records, written by Kinchen with Chrystal Orchard, Emily Nash and Jacob Manson, and produced by Kinchen with Nash and Larry Latenight. It also topped the UK dance chart, reached number two in Ireland, and has since been certified platinum in the UK, where platinum represents 600,000 units, and in Belgium, with gold certifications in Australia, New Zealand, Poland and Hungary. For Chrystal it was a first number one too, six months after her top ten debut with "The Days".

A first album at 54

In The Night Again arrived digitally on 30 October 2026, with CD and limited black vinyl pressings following on 20 November. It is his first album under the MK name after thirty-seven years of singles, remixes and production credits, and it is deliberately both things at once: sixteen tracks and fifty-two minutes in the standard edition, with a twenty-three-track deluxe version, gathering "17", "Dior", "Piece Of Me" and "Come Find Me" alongside previously unreleased material including "Leaving" with Tristan Henry. Vocal contributions come from Kareen Lomax, Clementine Douglas, Poppy Baskcomb and Ty Dolla $ign. The release is credited to River10Music under licence to Sony Music UK and Ultra Records.

Kinchen has been blunt about what it is. He has described it as "a kind of greatest hits but it's also a headphones album, a pre-party album and a pre-workout album" — a catalogue record designed to function outside the club as well as inside it.

Speaking to RTÉ on 30 October 2026, at 54, he also volunteered that he had turned down a Taylor Swift remix: "I said no to a Taylor Swift remix," he said, adding that he "just thought it wasn't the right career move." His reasoning was about the economics of remixing rather than the artist — the novelty that made a dance remix valuable in the 1990s has gone now that anyone can upload an unofficial version. He also talked about working with the Dublin artist Jazzy, and about caring less with age about where genre lines fall.

Standing now, and what is booked

Through 2026 MK held a weekly resident slot on Calvin Harris's Friday nights at Ushuaïa in Ibiza, alongside Tyson O'Brien, running from 29 May to 2 October on the open-air stage; Harris played both Fridays and Tuesdays that season. MK also played Creamfields at Daresbury on Saturday 29 August 2026 and Stanmer Park in Brighton on 26 September 2026, and he lists Glastonbury, Tomorrowland and Coachella among his regular festival appearances.

The near-term diary is global and club-weighted: listings show November 2026 dates at Illuzion in Phuket and Savaya in Bali, a Dubai beach-club show on 21 November, Pacha Ibiza earlier in October, San Diego in early December and a New Year's Eve booking in Houston.

The main announced run is a UK tour in early 2027, and the choice of rooms is pointed — warehouses and large clubs rather than arenas. It opens at DOCUMENT in Bristol on Friday 5 February 2027, then Depot Cardiff on Saturday 6 February, Blackstone Street Warehouse in Liverpool on Saturday 20 February, O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester on Friday 12 March and GASWRX in Birmingham on Saturday 13 March, with support still to be announced. He has also said he returns to Dublin's Telegraph Building in April 2027, his first Irish date since playing the 3Arena.