In “‘I Want Muscles’: House Music, Homosexuality and Masculine Signification,” Stephen Amico wrote that a deep pulsating rhythm was “overwhelmingly male” and suggested that it is “representative of masculinity in its potency.”[1] While it may be a stretch to suggest that Hardy’s stronger beats attracted a more masculine crowd, it is noted that the clientele of the Music Box was vastly different than that of the Warehouse or the Power Plant.
Hardy’s powerful beats were considered more aggressive and demanding of its listeners than Knuckles’. By 1982, Knuckles was considered a star in the scene, less reachable by the young up-and-comers. Meanwhile, Hardy would play their music and was an influence for many including the growing multitude of straight Music Box regulars. Hardy’s raw edge coupled with his approachability gave younger DJs something to aspire to. As Hardy’s acclaim grew, so did a change in the house music club scene. Soon, the Music Box was no longer considered a gay club, but just a club. Many of the house DJs that became prolific after the Music Box opened referred to Hardy as a great influence—many of those DJ were straight. As Robert Williams remarked, “These kids were a part of Ron’s school of learning. They were mainly heterosexual, and they gelled with Ron because he would play their music and Frankie wouldn’t.”[2] As the popularity of house music spread, it began to garner the attention of the Black straight community.
While much of the original clientele of the Warehouse was older and tended to dress for the occasion, the Music Box catered to a much younger crowd.[3] This younger crowd, while still predominantly gay, adapted a different fashion look for their club going experience.
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Brewster and Broughton wrote in Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, “The older smartly turned out partygoers followed Frankie to the Power Plant. The younger kids left for the craziness of the Music Box.”[4] They soon adapted their own look: baggy Girbaud jeans and sweatshirts.[5] This look would eventually be picked up by the hip-hop world.
In examining this split of the Power Plant/Music Box crowd, I propose that this signified a bougie/banjee split in the scene. The “smartly turned out” look of the Power Plant clientele presented a perceived bougie (upwardly) appearance, while the Music Box goers presented a banjee style (banjee coming from ballroom culture, a gay man presenting an overtly masculine vibe[6]). Singer Byron Stingley remarked of the Music Box crowd, “Ron played aggressive tracks… and all these sorts of guys from the ‘hood started going to the parties.”[7] |
Knuckles stated that while he was briefly a part of the Hot Mix radio scene, he didn’t particularly enjoy it. “I used to get accused of not being a team player… I said, ‘Look, I don’t have anything in common with you guys.’ Plus... being the only one that’s gay didn’t help matters any. They would say stuff behind my back about my lifestyle and my being gay, but they’d never come to me and say it.”[11] The apparent homophobia from the Hot Mix crew signaled once again that the current house community was taking a step farther away from its origins.
Farley “Jackmaster” Funk once stated in an interview, that while he played house music (Warehouse music in particular) it wasn’t an immediate success with his straight club audience as they thought—Funk included—it was all “fag music.”[12] Although it was made clear that Funk had no problem profiting from gay acts. Association with gays for financial profit was fine, however, being seen as gay was not. In the book Pump Up the Volume, Funk recalled his first experience in England where he performed “Love Can’t Turn Around” which was sung by Darryl Pandy, who was gay. “I was pushed out into this gay club and here I am, a heterosexual guy and too many times have been in a gay club, and all the guys started screaming and walking toward the stage to try to get a piece. And I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. Who you want is Darryl Pandy, he’s the singer.’”[13] - Farley "Jackmaster" Funk |
In the 2016 documentary, Unconscious Therapy and the Rise of House Music, several current DJs discussed their process, how they approached their sets, and their understanding of house music. The majority of the DJs interviewed were white (or Latino) men. While they all acknowledged Frankie Knuckles and/or Ron Hardy as the men responsible for bringing house music to the masses, there was not one mention of its queer roots. One DJ discussed how in the early days of house, they would go to “gay clubs” to listen to sets but quickly added he wasn’t gay.[14]
By the time house music began gaining popularity in the UK in the late ‘80s, it was even more removed from its Black queer roots—or if they were remembered, it was in a homophobic way. When London DJ Mike Pickering played at the club Astoria, in 1987, he brought Chicago house music records with him. He recalled, “I looked up and everyone stood on the dance floor… hissing and booing… saying, ‘Why are you playing this Chicago homo music?’”[15] However, this began to change and soon house music was a staple in the UK with house clubs like Shroom and La Hacienda packing in crowds every weekend.[16]
This again brings to point that the queer forebearers of house were not only forgotten, but house music’s birth story was being transformed. So much so, that in “Can You Feel It? DJs and House Music Culture in the UK,” Tony Langlois wrote that house music was, “...developed in Britain in the late 1980s.”[17] House music’s parents were now straight and mostly white. This engendering of new associations secured a straight white future for house music. Furthermore, as house grew in the UK, it evolved into several offshoots. Tony Langlois noted, “As the House sound became more widely popular and spread to the clubs of Europe, some UK DJs adopted the techniques of their American counterparts, developing the music their own way under a variety of local influences and conditions.”[18] While the evolution of music is nothing new, it is troubling that the history behind that musical evolution is all but erased at that point. This evolution’s path went from the Black queer men to Black straight men to white straight British men circling back to white straight American men ignorant of their music’s roots.
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Finally, while white heterogenic appropriation is nothing new, it was disheartening to know that much of this erasure came from the Black community itself. Respectability is paramount in the Black community. Anything that depicted them as stepping away from the ideals of masculinity or high femininity, morality, worthy of respect and completely “normal” would be unacceptable. The queer roots of house would undermine that.
For instance, in 1987, rapper and Public Enemy front man, Chuck D said of house, “It's sophisticated, anti-Black, anti-feel, the most artificial shit I ever heard. It represents the gay scene, it's separating the Blacks from their past and their culture, it's upwardly mobile.”[19] In one quote, D brings down the “gay scene,” its form of expression, what the music and movement signified, and “sophistication” (or a bougie lifestyle) is intended as a slur. The implication is that the gay communities’ struggles are not real if they are entrenched in so-called sophistication. So not only was there white erasure, but there was also Black erasure from some members of the Black community because the implied message was only the struggles of Black men like Chuck D were real and mattered. |
While no one can be certain of when the shift away from a Black queer of color predominance began in the house music scene (both in the clubs and the creators) it seems that partial responsibility for the shift is three-fold:
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