Man Parrish


Manuel Joseph "Man" Parrish is an American composer, songwriter, vocalist and producer. He, along with artists such as Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Art of Noise, Arthur Baker, Afrika Bambaataa, John Robie, Jellybean Benitez, Lotti Golden, Richard Scher and Aldo Marin, helped create and define electro in the early 1980s.

Biography

Parrish is a native New Yorker of Italian descent. He attended the High School For The Performing Arts and the Academy For Dramatic Arts as a teenager. He moonlighted as a non singing, onstage “extra” role in several operas at The Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan.
Parrish left home at the age of 14 and was a member of the extended family that converged nightly at Studio 54. His nickname, Man, first appeared in Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. Andy Warhol gave him the name “Man”. His early live shows at Bronx hip-hop clubs were spectacles of lights, glitter, and pyrotechnics, which drew as much from the Warhol mystique as the Cold Crush Brothers.
His premier release was "Hip Hop, Be Bop " issued in 1982, which was featured in the film Shaun of the Dead, the video game which sold millions of copies, and was sampled in Sway & King Tech's 1991 song "Follow 4 Now" from their second album "Concrete Jungle."
He's mixed, produced and worked with various artist like Boy George, Michael Jackson, Gloria Gaynor, The original Village People, Klaus Nomi, Steve Strange and Visage, Steve Bronski and Bronski Beat, and several other high-profile music industry artists.
He eventually signed with Elektra Records via David Bowie’s Manager Tony DeFries who also managed his music career, but was dropped from the label in 1984 when they decided not to release the album he had recorded for them. Elektra signed him for dance music, his manager wanted him to create pop-rock.
For six years, from 1994 to 2000 he was road manager for the famed disco band Village People. He traveled the world with them, produced music for their live show and managed their day to day business on the road.
In 2010s, Parrish was in negotiations with Pink Biscuit Records and was scheduled to release a record via Southern Fried Records, the label owned by Fatboy Slim. Parrish started his own label instead.
From 2000 to 2015, he created the longest running underground New York City club party, at the infamous gay CockBar.
Currently he has his own label called Parrish Digital with over 120 song releases on all major digital song platforms online.
In 2018, three pieces of his musical works were accepted into the prestigious Museum Of Modern Art’s MoMA permanent collection in New York City. Film scores for Behive,, The Jones’s, and his 1983 Music video for his well known song Hip Hop Be Bop.
In 2018, he also did a sound performance - installation for MoMA PS1 titled The Box, asking the question: Is Sound Considered Art?
Man Parrish currently spends time between New York City and a second home in Palm Beach Florida, composing, remixing, teaching and lecturing.

Discography

Chart hits

For full list of single releases see

Selected albums