Rick Wilhite / Various

The room glows dim and smoky, full of stylish dancers with skill, a DJ spinning vinyl with a mixer and two turntables, and people smiling: this is house music. A classic image, perhaps, but Rick Wilhite is passionate about what it means to be a DJ in the face of contemporary music technology. "Right now, depending on how intelligent you are with computers, you can become a DJ overnight," Rick (aka the Godson) told Resident Advisor. "The whole entertainment industry has created people that really have no passion doing what we do, as a producer, as a remixer, as a DJ." As a long-time music maker and collaborator, Rick's done the hard work to know the passion. His first release was with Juan Atkins on a Sherrard Ingram record. This was back when he and friends like Blake Baxter and Kevin Saunderson would jam out on used equipment while building their studio from the ground up. Vibes New & Rare Music honours Rick's record shop of the same name in Detroit. Soulful, sparkling synths on "Ninja," by Glenn Underground, sound organic, with deep, masculine samples of how "The Ninja was an ancient Chinese skill [that] evolved in Japan into the Ninja art." "Microbust," by the Godson and Kyle Hall, takes percussion to unexpected places, illuminating the power of the beat through crackles and haunting, gunshot-like sounds while never losing the soft house reverberations. Rick and likeminded artists on the record show the immeasurability of what passion and experience can do for house music with tracks both new and rare.