The room quakes as the bass drives deep within. The room vibrates not just with the thump-thump-thump-thump of the 4/4 beat but also with the anticipation and celebration of the dancers within the space. Hearts, minds, souls calling out when that bass hits, and it hits hard, and all you can do is respond.
Can you feel it? Oh, yeah. Can you feel it? Oh, yeah.[1] A call and response, a spiritual thing, with the DJ, the holiest of men, at the helm taking you and your found family to a higher plane where the music enters the soul like a revelation and brings you into its fold. |
In the late 1970s, house music sprang forth from disco’s ashes, with deep bass-ridden grooves, ready to claim a space in the world. The Black queer community was at the forefront of this rebirth as Frankie Knuckles helped to lead the charge, along with Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, and Jesse Saunders; many of who were also Black queer men. As such, house music was a beacon of hope for queer people of color looking for acceptance wherever they might find it. Yet throughout the years, the common knowledge of house music’s early Black queer history has all but vanished.
Ethnomusicologist, Luis Manuel-Garcia, stated in RA Magazine, "Nobody is really denying that disco emerged out of queer nightlife… but as house turns into acid-house turns into techno… somehow queer folks slip out of the established narrative and disappear."[2] In the 2016 documentary, Unconscious Therapy and the Rise of House Music, DJs were interviewed and discussed their understanding of the genre. The majority were white men, and while they all acknowledged Frankie Knuckles, Larry Levan, and Ron Hardy as being predominantly responsible for bringing house music to the masses, there was not one mention of its queer roots. Why is that?
In 1990, Frankie Knuckles referred to House as “Disco’s revenge.”[3] Did house music begin after the symbolic death of disco or merely evolve? Disco was already established as the music of the disenfranchised, although toward the end of its popular run, it had been commercialized and commoditized. Still, was house an orphaned child trying to make its way, or something else completely? And why was the movement responsible for its creation all but forgotten? Why this shift? |
On July 12, 1979, rock radio DJ Steve Dahl spearheaded the Disco Demolition night at the Chicago White Sox home stadium, Comiskey Park.[4] What was meant to be a quick promotional event in between a baseball doubleheader, became much more.
At the stadium, chaos ensued and rather than focusing solely on disco records, attendees destroyed all manner of music from Black artists. Seven to ten thousand anti-disco enthusiasts rushed the field, chanting the homophobically charged “Disco sucks!”[5] Records were burned in effigy and were used as coded language as disco meant Black, Latinx, gay; a musical embodiment of The Other, and white men were there to destroy. Chic’s Nile Rodgers commented that it was very reminiscent of a Nazi book burning.[6] DJ Jesse Saunders remarked of the event, “Back then if you were gay, gay-friendly, or different to the status quo, then you were considered not good enough for the rock movement.”[7]
Several years before the Disco Demolition, however, the germination took place for what would eventually become house music. In New York City, David Mancuso’s dance space, the Loft, was thriving and cultivating a diverse scene, which offered a mixture of danceable music and an inclusive environment. It was at the Loft where two lifelong friends, Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan, became lured by the music and everything the Loft had to offer including acceptance and community. The Loft catered to everyone and accepted anyone. Nile Rodgers stated in the documentary I Was There When House Took Over the World that the Loft would be a template for all other clubs to come. “The music is just a reflection of the culture. It's a microcosm of what's actually happening out in the world. People started to ask for their voices to be heard. The women’s movement, the gay movement, Black power movement, all these things started to cross-pollinate and we became comrades, and it played itself out in nightclubs. The Loft made you feel welcome regardless of where you were coming.” - Nile Rodgers |
For Knuckles and Levan, who were both Black and gay, this was monumental, not only for the scene but also the music.[8]
In New York, from the Loft to the Paradise Garage, everyone partied together. A club scene regular, Robert Williams was also inspired by what he experienced at the Loft. Wanting to bring something similar back to Chicago, Williams sought out Larry Levan, who at the time was working at Continental Baths, to become the resident DJ at a new club he was opening.
“Chicago was dead,” Williams said, “and the people there had never been introduced to an after hours scene like the Loft, so I launched the Warehouse.”[9]
Knuckles accepted Williams’ offer and began to play at the Warehouse, located inside a narrow three-story building in Chicago. The Warehouse opened in March 1977 as a members-only club, catering to Black queer men.[10] This exclusivity provided a safe space for its members. According to Knuckles, “It was predominantly Black, predominantly gay… very soulful, very spiritual.”[11] |
When Knuckles moved to Chicago in 1977, he noticed how segregated the city was. Seeing the dance scene also affected by this segregation was quite a shock to Knuckles. “The white kids didn’t party with the Black kids… and then when I found that the Black gay kids didn’t want to party with the white gay kids… I was like, we're all living the same lifestyle here. It made no sense to me.”[12] Still, the exclusivity of the Warehouse afforded its gay members a safe scene to call their own.
As crowds came in to bask in the bass, the impact of the Warehouse would not be known at the time. A sense of euphoria was common for the club attendees. Who would have predicted that house would create such a musical ripple effect?
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By 1982, Williams had dropped memberships and entrance fees doubled in price.[13] As the membership policies of the Warehouse changed, so did its clientele. “The membership was no longer important,” Knuckles said in a 2011 interview. “What forced me to quit was the fact that it just became dangerous… at that point, I just thought this was no longer the club that my heart was into.”[14] It was at this point the Warehouse was shut down by the city of Chicago, and Knuckles decided to go out on his own and open the Power Plant.[15]
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With the Warehouse gone, Robert Williams opened the Music Box, and it was Ron Hardy, who took over as resident DJ after being brought in from Los Angeles.[16] Hardy, also Black and gay, drew in crowds who discovered his harder, louder, brash beat.
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Hardy and Knuckles were good friends, but with vastly different styles. While Knuckles’ work was more stylistic, disco-based and classic, Hardy’s was powerful, frenetic, booming—it literally moved you. Hardy became a game changer in the scene, and the crowds coming into the Music Box began to change as well as house music’s audience expanded.
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