- [Narrator] Coming up.

It's a sound that connects, uplifts, and unites.

- It's a groove that channels a different place in you.

- House music is just more of a feeling than it is a sound.

- [Narrator] That infectious feeling was created in Chicago's underground Black gay clubs by DJs blending musical genres.

- Disco is the mother of house, gospel is the father of house, funk and soul are the brothers and sisters of house.

I mean, it's all mixed in there.

- [Narrator] The music rose from the ashes of disco.

(explosion booms) - [Crowd] Disco sucks!

Disco sucks!

Disco sucks!

- America loves the music of Black people, but not always the actual Black people who create it.

- House music is disco's revenge.

- [Narrator] House music spread worldwide.

- It's essentially the blueprint for all of electronic dance music.

- When you move your body for the goal of joy and ecstasy and freedom and liberation, it just does something.

- [Narrator] And it all started in Chicago.

- And it's Chicago.

It's born and raised here.

- Yes, this is it, you know?

We have taken over the world.

- [Narrator] "House Music: A Cultural Revolution" next on "Chicago Stories."

(bright dramatic music) (upbeat music) ♪ You won't break my soul ♪ ♪ You won't break my soul ♪ - [Narrator] In 2023, music icon Beyonce made history.

Her soul wasn't broken, but a Grammy record was when she became the most Grammy award-winning artist of all time.

The sound that took her over the top started in Chicago.

- [Announcer] It's "Renaissance," Beyonce.

- I'd like to thank the queer community for your love and for inventing this genre.

- [Narrator] That genre is house.

(upbeat music) A dance music that evolved from disco.

Its distinctive sound blends disco, funk, and soulful vocals with a repetitive drum beat.

It's a sound born in Chicago's underground Black gay clubs in the 1970s, clubs that offered a safe space to party and refuge from racial discrimination and social turmoil raging across America.

(gun shots blasting) (explosion booms) (crowd chanting) - There's a lot of upheaval, there's a lot of trauma, there's a lot of violence.

- [Narrator] Amidst that upheaval, people needed an escape.

Music and dance provided it.

(upbeat music) - How can you make music and find a way to sing under such duress?

And the answer is because you must.

You absolutely must.

You must use the music to find each other, to find yourself.

- [Narrator] And against all odds, those marginalized Chicagoans found community and self-expression on the dance floor.

(upbeat music) But the story of house music begins with disco.

In the early '70s, disco dance clubs opened from coast to coast.

- Disco is a Black American music and it's a dance music and it's creating escapism, fantasy.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] As disco's popularity grew, the music crossed over and became more widely accepted by mainstream audiences after "Saturday Night Fever" became a huge box office hit.

- [Fredara] "Saturday Night Fever" becomes the emblem of disco because America loves the music of Black people, but it does not always love and embrace the actual Black people who create it.

♪ Yeah ♪ - [Narrator] In 1974, a young gay group of friends, Donald Crossley, Michael Matthews, and Vickie Jones wanted to experience the disco scene sweeping the nation.

They headed to Chicago's premiere gay disco tech, Dugan's Bistro, thought to rival New York's Studio 54.

But Dugan's Bistro catered to a predominantly white crowd and was not welcoming to African Americans.

- There was a guy that worked at the door.

He would give us a hard time getting in.

- [Narrator] So the group traveled to New York City to David Mancuso's iconic loft party.

- When we got into that David's loft, it was like going into another world.

Everybody was dancing, the music was blasting all over the place.

It was just such a different feeling of not having known what that was like, being here in Chicago.

- [Narrator] They fell in love with the freedom, the openness, the energy.

They couldn't stay away.

- I said, "Nobody here has any parties like the ones they have in New York."

And my mother said, "Why can't y'all just have parties here?"

And a little light bulb pops up in my head.

I'm thinking, "Wait a minute, she's got a point."

- [Narrator] Crossley and friends formed a social group, calling themselves US Studio.

They planned to use their own apartments to throw loft-style disco parties that replicated the New York experience.

- And we also said, we really don't have any money.

And Ziggy said, "Well, I'll give you guys $500."

- [Narrator] Longtime friend Ziggy Schuh, a gay violin maker from Germany, offered to pay for the equipment.

He would become US Studio's financier.

They promoted the party by passing out handmade flyers.

- We only wanted a certain type of clientele.

- [Narrator] The word of mouth campaign worked and the crowd poured in.

- It had to be almost 500 people.

We never expected a crowd like that.

- [Narrator] The event proved that Chicagoans had a thirst for the same type of parties New York provided, where a mostly gay Black and Latino crowd could dance and enjoy a freedom they had never known.

US Studio began hosting parties around the city.

twice a month.

Partygoers followed.

But as their profile grew, the group attracted unwanted attention.

According to Crossley, a couple of mob enforcers showed up at a party on Clinton Street and demanded payment for hosting a party in their area.

Donald and Vickie explained that they had already paid for the space.

- And the guy says, "Well, you're not understanding what I'm saying.

People have parties here and they can pay for it."

I said, "We're not paying nobody for nothing.

I know what this is all about."

And Vickie and I walked away and we went on inside.

Next morning, my brother comes upstairs, he had a newspaper in his hand, and the newspaper said, "Loft on fire."

It was burned to the ground.

- [Narrator] Their space and equipment was destroyed, as was their sense of security.

But their desire to gather was undaunted.

In late 1974, US Studio found a new home in the city's warehouse district at 555 West Adams.

- But you would hear people saying, "I'm going to the Warehouse.

You going to the Warehouse?

You going to the Warehouse tonight?"

And everybody just wanted to call it that.

- [Narrator] And the Warehouse was born, creating a new disco party scene in Chicago, and DJ Michael Matthews was at the center of it all.

- Michael Matthews was the DJ that actually started the movement here in Chicago and never gets credit.

(upbeat music) One party in particular, the people had partied so hard that at the end of the party, they all started clapping and he looked at me and said, "What are they doing?"

I said, "They giving you a standing ovation."

- [Narrator] US Studio's Warehouse parties quickly became the place to be.

- So that's where we, well, that's where they began.

I was really a tag along at that point.

I wasn't part of the social club.

- [Narrator] Robert Williams, a veteran of the New York Club scene, saw the social club as a great business opportunity.

- I decided, "Well, this is a nice little setup they have."

So I decided to incorporate it as a real business.

- [Narrator] But disagreements about dues, titles, and admission fees started almost immediately.

After two years of infighting, they split.

- So at that point, we just decided that this is not working for us.

We didn't think anything about we leaving a future business or how big this was gonna be, but we were a bunch of friends who just wanted to have a party.

- [Narrator] Donald, Michael, and Vickie left the organization they started to Robert and Ziggy and launched a new club called The Bowery.

They hosted high glamour theme parties and the crowd followed.

- [Donald] Nobody was going to the Warehouse, everybody was coming to the Bowery.

- We were a little depressed because we were like, "Mm, we might be really out of business here."

- [Narrator] Robert and Ziggy needed a powerhouse DJ to lure the crowd back to the Warehouse.

Robert headed east to ask New York City's top disco DJ, Larry Levan, to come to Chicago.

- And he told me no.

- Larry said absolutely not.

He had no intentions of leaving New York City.

But Larry kept saying, "You should take Frankie, 'cause he doesn't have a job now."

And I was their second choice.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Frankie Knuckles would eventually be crowned the godfather of house music, but in 1977, he was a 22-year-old art student who was making a name for himself as a DJ on the New York scene.

Williams lured Knuckles with a promise of a three-story club in downtown Chicago, complete with the best sound system money could buy.

- And then they offered me the residency and a part of the business, as an incentive, and I went back home and thought about it, made the move.

- [Narrator] The new Warehouse opened its doors at 206 South Jefferson in March of 1977, featuring Frankie Knuckles as its resident DJ.

- And I played for the grand opening.

It was fabulous.

Everybody came out.

The place was packed.

There was a line down the street.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] But after the grand opening, no one came back.

- There was no one going there at all.

Somehow, we ended up losing the audience.

- [Narrator] Over at the Bowery, the parties were booming.

♪ All right, y'all ♪ ♪ Yeah, here we go ♪ ♪ Tell 'em man, yeah ♪ ♪ Woo, yeah ♪ - Our name had gotten out so much that we were getting a lot of people that were coming from New York.

We had kind of arrived.

We had no competition.

We didn't think anything about the Warehouse.

- [Narrator] Desperate to bring a crowd to the Warehouse, Knuckles looked for other gigs around town to raise his profile.

- None of the white clubs were hiring any Black DJs.

Black, you know, I mean gay or straight.

It just wasn't done back then.

- [Narrator] With the Warehouse on the verge of collapse, DJ Michael Matthews made a kind gesture that would change the world of music.

- Only thing that saved us was Michael.

He invited Frankie to come to the Bowery and play.

- And everybody loved him.

- [Narrator] At the Bowery, the crowd went wild for Knuckles.

He soon built an audience at the Warehouse.

- People just rushed to him like he was a celebrity.

(upbeat music) - Disco signals the shift of the DJ as a performer, not just somebody who is playing a record and then switching to another record, but creating a tapestry of sound and music through the manipulation of records.

- [Narrator] The two premiere gay dance spots packed in the crowds.

By 1978, the Bowery founders had achieved their goals and called it quits.

- There were places that a lot of, you know, Blacks could go to, and that was our main goal in the very beginning.

And so once we had succeeded with that, we felt good that we were able to leave it alone.

- [Narrator] In the 1970s, most gay people had to hide their sexual identities.

The Warehouse was one of the few places where gay Black and Latino people could gather and have the freedom to be themselves.

A crowd of more than 500 packed the club every weekend.

- It opened at midnight on Saturday night and it closed at noon on Sunday.

For a lot of people, you know, that was all they needed was that one night.

They would live all week for that one night, which was great.

(upbeat music) - Queer Black people most certainly needed to gather and create a safe space for them.

If queer Black people are safe, then everybody else is going to be safe.

- Most of white kids would say, "You'd never catch me down there," because they just had it fixed in their mind what was going on.

But they had never been there, so they really didn't know.

But there was a handful that were really daring and was really into it, and they came down there and they danced like it was nobody's business.

I mean, it just all worked.

Nobody saw color.

Everybody was too busy dancing and enjoying the music and having a good time.

- [Narrator] Disco was having its moment.

The music was uniting people on the dance floor and skyrocketing in the mainstream market.

But an anti-disco movement was growing around the nation, one believed to be rooted in racism and homophobia.

In Chicago, local shock jock, Steve Dahl, led the charge.

He had lost his job when his station switched from rock and roll to disco.

- [Crowd] Disco sucks!

Disco sucks!

Disco sucks!

- "Disco sucks" was Dahl's rallying cry, as he amassed a crowd of 50,000 for the disco demolition during a White Sox doubleheader at Comiskey Park.

98 cent tickets were sold to anyone who brought disco records to destroy.

(crowd cheers) Dahl detonated the vinyl as crowds stormed the field.

- I was a kid watching that on the news, like it was terrifying.

They were burning a lot of Black records, Black music.

It was like watching a Klan rally.

- [Narrator] Dahl denied the event was racist or homophobic, saying quote, "We were just kids pissing on a musical genre."

- We didn't blow up Jimi Hendrix records.

We didn't blow up David Bowie records.

It was just, it was really just a rock and roll versus disco thing.

- The irony of course being that rock and roll is and was Black music and that is the genre that is used to beat back Black dance music.

- The whole debacle that happened in Comiskey Park, there were like a lot of really big commercial discos and then all of a sudden, like in 24 hours, they all just completely disappeared.

- [Narrator] Disco demolition devastated the industry.

Record companies shut down dance departments, artists were dropped by major labels, and disco nearly disappeared from the Billboard charts.

- Disco demolition, it created the underground scene because all the DJs went underground.

- [Narrator] Out of the violence came a new incarnation of disco called house music.

- And I think that Frankie said it best when he said, "House music is disco's revenge."

- House music is the evolution of disco.

- [Narrator] At the Warehouse, Knuckles began remixing disco songs on the spot using two turntables and a mixer.

He pushed the boundaries and added drum tracks, sound effects, and sampled other artists to create an entirely new sound.

- It's funny because with house, you can't really pinpoint what exactly makes it house other than the groove.

But you feel it in ways that you don't feel anything else.

- House music is freedom, it's liberation.

- [Ralphi] It's a feeling of release, it's a feeling of exhilaration, it's a feeling of happiness.

- It is music of struggle, but also of joy and pleasure, of triumph.

- The house music community and the culture is an evolution of the Black arts movement.

- [Narrator] House music did more than make people dance.

It created a culture that touched people in a deep and meaningful way.

- There's a groove that channels a different place in you.

It's like going to church, full on, full going to church.

It's a spiritual element.

- The first time I walked into the Warehouse, I was a nervous wreck because I was only 15 years old and I wasn't supposed to be in there.

First of all, I wasn't old enough, but of course, you know, we all went to 63rd and Cottage Grove, got our phony IDs.

- I went to the Warehouse as a teenager.

It was an amazing experience.

It was a juice bar that was for gay people.

And the way that the music enveloped us and sort of swallowed us into this energy, it made me wanna sort of be a part of it.

- It was like capturing lightning in a bottle.

You knew that you wanted that moment to last forever.

- It was church to them because the music, it got into their body, their soul, their mind.

- We want people, for a moment, to forget the trials of life, step into something else, and then when you leave, it'll still be there for you.

But hopefully you can carry it a little lighter.

- My father was a minister.

I spent a lot of time in church.

I know what that's like.

You know, it was tough for me because I came out as bisexual as a 17-year-old and this was very antithetical to what was happening in my household.

And my father, you know, was not happy about it and told me I was dead to them and I needed to go.

And that was really tough.

- Queer Black people who may not have felt comfortable in churches any longer, they still needed that sort of experience.

- This was a community that was saying, "We welcome you, we love you."

What's more spiritual than that?

My parents, who really did a 180 on all those things, and my dad eventually apologized and told me how stupid he was for doing what he did.

I don't mean to give all the credit to house music, but it shaped who I was.

You know, it made me open and it made me brave.

- [Narrator] And it was the spirit of house music that moved an unlikely audience, Catholic high school students.

One enterprising Mendel High School student, Kirkland Townsend, convinced the Augustinian priests to let him DJ one of the traditional sock hop parties.

The turnout was huge and weekly parties followed.

- Every week, every Saturday night and sometimes Friday, we're averaging 3 to 4,000 kids a night and they're paying me $500 a night and 10% of the door.

That was huge.

Fortunately, the priests knew nothing about these things, so they really depended on my opinion because they needed the revenue to keep the doors of the school open.

- I was too young to go to the Warehouse.

My first time actually hearing Frankie Knuckles was at Mendel High School.

In the '80s, all the Catholic schools on the south and some of the west side all had house music parties.

- Donut sales, chocolate sales, raffles.

This wasn't gonna bring in that kinda money.

We put a new roof on that school, new windows, a new senior lounge.

The revenue virtually filled the gap and kept the school open till 1988.

- [Narrator] Townsend produced the parties for 12 years, raising millions of dollars for the school and inspiring the next generation of house DJs.

- I went to a couple of parties when I was, like, 11 years old.

My boys from high school, so they didn't check IDs, so I was able to get in with them.

Once I heard the music, it sparked a flame, and I said, "This is what I want to do."

- The Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, one of the first places I experienced it.

Friends of mine dressed me up to look like an adult at 14 years old and I actually got in.

There was 5,000 people and it was a battle of the DJs competition.

You could hear the mix going on and before you know it, the baseline for "Funkytown" controlled the entire room and the place just erupted when that baseline came on.

♪ Won't you take me to ♪ ♪ Funkytown ♪ - [Ralphi] And that's when I said, "I have to do this.

This is what I want to do."

- That's the essence of any real good party, especially if you've got great music going on, then it's gonna be a great night.

You know what I mean?

Because that's what fuels everybody and everything that's going on.

- [Narrator] As the music became more popular, the crowd continued to grow.

- Friday night was straight, Saturday night was gay, and before you knew it, the Friday night crowd took over the Saturday night crowd and there was a point between 1979 and probably '81, '82, that the trend was to act like you were gay, to be a part of that kind of club.

So they all, you know, glammed and glitzed and this, that, and the other and looking as gay as they possibly can, but they were straight.

- [Narrator] Partygoers wanted to bring the music home.

They found the sounds at one of their favorite gathering places, record stores.

They asked for the music from the Warehouse and soon it became known simply as house music.

- We used to close the Warehouse and go buy the records that basically you heard Frankie do the night before.

- [Narrator] People resorted to all kinds of methods to capture the sound.

- People didn't have cell phones to record.

What a lot of people would do is, they'd come in and they'd try to hum something or sing something, and it was really difficult.

Or if they were lucky, they'd find a payphone that was in the club and then they'd call themselves and then they'd bring in the answering phone tape from the answering machine.

- [Narrator] Soon, radio stations wanted in, too.

WBMX radio broadcast a weekly house dance party with DJs known as the Hot Mix 5.

- It's like a whole dance party that you would hear that entire night.

- [Narrator] In 1981, it was the number one show in Chicago, reaching hundreds of thousands of listeners.

Ralphi Rosario submitted his tapes to the station for months.

One Saturday, he heard a familiar sound.

- I'm sitting there listening to it.

I said, "This kind of sounds like my tape."

And then I heard the second song, and I go, "It's definitely what I recorded."

So then at the end of it, they actually announced my name and I was in shock.

I was in shock and I was, what?

15 years old?

- [DJ] From Ralphley, Ralphi, rocking and rolling Rosario on BMX AM and FM.

- [Narrator] Rosario earned a coveted DJ spot.

- We aired it every Saturday, it was called "Saturday Night Live, Ain't No Jive."

- [Narrator] Despite the enormous popularity of the Hot Mix 5... - There was no pay.

We were not getting paid.

So then there was tension about the advertising and the no pay.

- [Narrator] Rosario quit and began producing from home.

- Back in the day, we're recording records in a recording studio.

We had to deal with tape machines, recording engineers, and everything else like that.

Then later on I realized that I can actually do the same thing in my own bedroom, set it up the way that I wanna set it up, and become my own recording engineer.

And that's exactly what I did.

- [Narrator] Bedroom producers emerged in the '80s, creating music using electronic synthesizers and drum machines, the latest technology of the time.

- What I love about technology is it opens it up to a lot more people.

It's a lot more accessible to people who wouldn't normally have access.

- Once drum machines or sequencers, keyboards, they talked to each other and you could figure things out, the sky was the limit.

- [Narrator] While the sky was the limit for bedroom producers, on the ground, Knuckles contemplated the future of the Warehouse.

- The club just wasn't growing anymore.

My partners at the time, Robert and Ziggy, they were quite happy with where they were, but I wasn't happy because the club was beginning to make a name for itself and people were talking about it in New York and in DC and it was at a point where it could have been so much more than what it was at the time.

So I just reached a point where it was just time for me to go.

- [Narrator] After five years as the resident DJ, Knuckles left the Warehouse and opened his own club, the Power Plant in the shadow of the Cabrini-Green Housing Project.

And without Frankie Knuckles, the Warehouse couldn't survive.

Robert and Ziggy needed to reinvent the house party experience to stay afloat.

Robert opened the Muzic Box and catered to an even bigger audience.

The straight Black crowd.

- The Muzic Box was this famous club in Chicago underneath Michigan Avenue.

It was like a little whole subculture of, you know, entrances into alleys and garages, it was a pretty cool club where Ron Hardy became the resident DJ.

- [Narrator] At the Muzic Box, Hardy would become one of the most recognized names in house music thanks to his innovative editing and mixing style.

- He really was very, very talented.

A lot of people try to compare Ronnie to Frankie.

They compare the Muzic Box to the Power Plant.

But when you compare the two, you're really comparing apples and butter beans.

- Well, Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy.

were definitely two of the major players in house culture and their styles are very different.

They had a lot of love and respect for each other.

They actually played together at the Power Plant.

Frankie, the first word that always come to mind with me with him was always sophistication.

He painted with very nice brushstrokes.

He painted within the lines.

♪ It's not over ♪ ♪ Between you and me ♪ ♪ It's not over ♪ ♪ I don't wanna ♪ ♪ I don't wanna be free ♪ ♪ What has been joined by God ♪ ♪ By God ♪ ♪ Let no man put asunder ♪ - Ron Hardy was very manic.

He colored outside the lines.

♪ Baby, baby, baby ♪ ♪ Baby, baby, baby ♪ ♪ Baby, baby, baby ♪ ♪ Aw, shucks ♪ ♪ Aw, shucks ♪ ♪ Aw, shucks ♪ ♪ Aw, shucks ♪ ♪ Baby, baby, baby ♪ ♪ Baby, baby, baby ♪ ♪ Baby, baby, baby ♪ - Balls to the wall, anything goes, playing music backwards and really pulling from any and everything.

You know, like someone is just in a state of panic, if you will.

There was a lot of more angst and punk.

- Frankie was musical journey.

You're gonna go up and down.

And Ron Hardy was like, "Lemme just beat you over the head all night long."

It was just hard.

It was fast.

He did a lot of remixing on the spot.

- [Narrator] Hardy was also the first to play the tracks from the bedroom producers.

- Ron Hardy was already banging out my basic tracks off my Casio CZ keyboard and my Roland Dr.

Rhythm drum machine.

- He would take their stuff and add effects to it and just put his own little stuff to it.

- [Narrator] Hardy would play anything and sometimes nothing at all.

- And he's just sitting there and I'm like, "You're not gonna play nothing?

You're not gonna put the record on?"

"No, just let 'em stomp the floor.

Just let 'em carry on.

Let them just do what they do.

They'll be fine, Gene.

Just let the kids be the kids."

And I'll be like, "Wow."

(laughs) - [Narrator] The Muzic Box attracted people from all backgrounds, from punks to preppies to El Rukn gang members.

- In the '80s, there was also a club called the Fort, that was Jeff Fort's and the El Rukn's spot on 39th and Drexel.

Very popular house spot, the El Rukn's Fort.

And then some of those very same house thugs would be at the Muzic Box.

- [Narrator] The Power Plant maintained its popularity with Frankie Knuckles at the helm.

But after three years, he felt pulled in a different direction.

- I realized, you know, I want to get more involved in production.

I couldn't do both.

I couldn't own and run that club, play in that club, and get an education in production as well.

Something was going to suffer and the club came very close to suffering.

So I ended up shutting it down.

- [Narrator] In the early '80s, a new generation of DJs and producers rose to prominence, mostly straight middle class Black youth who were influenced by the sounds they heard at the Warehouse and Muzic Box.

- Since a lot of people thought house music was just from Black and Brown gay people.

And the reality is, most of the kids involved with creating house music were straight Black guys.

- Most of them, like Vince Lawrence, Marshall Jefferson, Larry Heard, Lil Louis, Chip E., all those people, none of them were gay and those are the pioneers.

- [Narrator] In 1984, Jesse Saunders made history with the release of "On & On."

It was the first house record to be pressed and sold to the public.

(upbeat music) (man laughing) Soon, newly formed labels popped up to take advantage of the emerging genre.

- Certain labels in Chicago that were out at the time started gobbling up all these tracks, all these bedroom producers.

A lot of artists, especially from the south side of Chicago, they didn't understand the business side of it.

Even to this day, we're still fighting, trying to get their masters back, me being one of them.

But the people who actually own the catalog outright are the ones that are capitalizing on what they did.

The difference between house and hip hop is that hip hop had guns.

(laughs) So if you took their money, they came for you.

(laughs) You would never actually do that ever again.

So if we weren't making any money in house music, we were just at the bar getting drunk, wondering what happened.

- [Narrator] And the records sold by some of the new labels were of inferior quality.

- They were recycling their vinyl.

So in some cases, when you put the record on, you could hear the old record in the background.

Like, "What am I gonna hear now?

It sounds like a Frank Sinatra thing in the background."

They melted it over and turned it into a house record.

It was crazy.

- [Narrator] Vinyl wasn't the only thing being recycled.

Young producers sampled sounds from old songs to create new ones.

♪ I can't turn around ♪ - [Narrator] Isaac Hayes's "I Can't Turn Around" had a second life when it became one of the most sampled songs in house music with one version topping the charts in England.

♪ But when we get down to it ♪ ♪ I just love the way you do it ♪ ♪ And I love you ♪ ♪ Love can't turn around ♪ ♪ Love can't turn around ♪ ♪ Love can't turn around ♪ - [Narrator] In 1985, Chip E. released "It's House," the first house track composed without the use of sampling.

- So when I was creating my music, anybody who's heard it on the radio, heard it in the club, they wouldn't have any problem identifying the song and asking for the song.

So my first track was called "It's House" and the lyrics are literally.

- It's house, it's house, it's house, it's house.

- It's house, it's house, it's house.

- That was the first song that I ever heard, you know, them actually saying, it's house.

♪ Gotta have house music ♪ ♪ All night long ♪ - [Narrator] In 1986, Marshall Jefferson released "Move Your Body," which became the official anthem of the Chicago house scene and a global hit.

♪ Gimme that house music ♪ ♪ Set me free ♪ - [Narrator] Despite house music's origin as a place of acceptance, there was one group that found itself on the outside looking in.

- I am DJ Celeste Alexander, and I am one of Chicago's first female house music DJs.

- As far as women go in house music, you know, it was few and far between in the beginning.

- [Narrator] Some men in the industry believed that DJ skills were too complicated for women to master.

- It was the craft of learning how to play the music that drew me in before the music actually really, really did.

- [Narrator] In addition to technical proficiency, women brought an awareness of how the music moves the listeners, how it makes them feel.

- It's about sort of freeing yourself to be present with a movement.

It's about a harmony and allowing yourself to be swept up in it, not resisting it, you know, sort of going with this flow.

- [Narrator] Being told that they couldn't was all some of the women needed for motivation.

Not only could they, but they would.

DJ and Grammy nominated producer, Steve Hurley, was one of the first to encourage women to take on house music.

- All Steve talked about was music, mixing.

He told me it was the process of blending two records together simultaneously with two turntables and a mixer.

And he told me there are girls that can do it, but there was some type of belief amongst the males that did it that women did not have the proper coordination to learn how to mix music.

- We have way better eye hand coordination, so I don't know what the problem is.

A lot of men just felt like women couldn't DJ and every time you would show up, you had to prove it over and over again.

I'm not sure why it's so hard to conceptualize a woman blending two songs together.

- [Narrator] However, audiences did not immediately accept them.

- My very first paid DJ gig, I got booed.

(crowd booing) I got booed right off the DJ booth.

I didn't get two records in and it was basically because I was a girl.

So I had to spend a lot of time balancing how to get in, how to fit in, how to be accepted, and still learning at the same time.

- Yeah, I was once told by a friend that, "I love the way you DJ because you play like a man.

And when I'm trying to sell you to other people, that's what does it."

"When I say, 'Well, she plays like a guy.'"

We argue about this all the time because I'm like, "I don't think that's a compliment.

I know what you're trying to say, but it's a little sexist."

Maybe more than a little.

- [Narrator] But the women remained committed, even resorting to unisex dressing to cloak their identities.

- I didn't even dress like a female.

I wore overalls or thick sweatshirts and baseball caps and I wouldn't take the hat off or reveal that I was a female until after I had played a few songs and gotten the crowd's attention by the music.

Then I would reveal my gender.

- Men also sort of control things.

So they're the club owners, they're the people who are booking you, so you have to sort of appease them and so you have to play in a way that men find that acceptable.

- [Narrator] The clubs could sometimes be dangerous for the women who worked there.

- During a gig during the time that I was learning how to DJ, I was sexually assaulted.

I'm talking about in the '80s.

I mean, we didn't have all of the laws that are put in place that protect us in the workplace.

- I think that women at the helm in much more powerful positions of authority behind the music, behind production, behind venues, well this is so important.

That's what's gonna ultimately pave the way for more women entering the field and being successful.

- [Narrator] A sisterhood of young DJs has emerged with a new attitude, mad skills, and fierce determination.

- At some point, you just have to take that power back yourself.

I mean, people are always gonna be misogynistic.

I can count on my hand how many women DJs, like, in this generation that are really being pushed as much as male DJs.

And it's not a talent discrepancy thing.

The common denominator is them being a different gender.

- I'd like to see women on just as many lineups as men.

Girls bang, girls bang really hard.

- [Narrator] By the mid '80s, house music had taken over Europe.

In a few short years, the sound and club scene morphed once again into electronic dance music, or EDM.

- EDM has become a global sensation.

You know, those roots are in house music.

- [Narrator] EDM is characterized by high octane beats and rave culture, where DJs could command top dollar.

- When white people often come in, commodify, commercialize, start making money off of the thing, then all of a sudden it's considered a genre or legitimate.

- When they come out with the highest paid DJs, none of the real house DJs ever make those lists.

It's always the EDM.

- [Narrator] Critics of EDM say the genre prioritizes profits over authenticity and erases the inclusive culture of the house music that inspired it.

- The equity is not there.

I would like to see the people who have been pioneering the genre and putting in the work for decades to have the notoriety and being able to sustain themselves as much as the 18-year-olds who just have industry connections, who are making millions of dollars off of the bastardization of the genre that they have really nothing to do with.

- The money part is really important and the credit is often going to flow to the white DJ and obscure not just the Black artists, the DJs, the musicians, the producers, but it also obscures the Black audiences and communities that have helped to nurture this music along the way.

All of that often literally gets whitewashed.

- [Narrator] The early trailblazers of house music didn't seek validation, fame, or fortune.

- I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm able to still do what I do best and have a good time doing it and people have a good time with it.

So that's enough for me.

- [Narrator] And it was more than enough for Frankie Knuckles fans to name him the godfather of house.

Knuckles was in high demand.

He would go on to produce and remix music for superstars, including Diana Ross, Luther Vandross, Toni Braxton, and Michael Jackson.

And in 1997, he would become the first house DJ to win a Grammy award for remixing.

- Yeah, this is the very first one in this category.

I'm very, very fortunate, I'm very happy to have it.

- [Narrator] The '90s saw improvements in technology, permitting more house DJs to take their sounds global.

♪ Rhythm is a dancer ♪ ♪ It's a soul's companion ♪ - [Narrator] Snap's "Rhythm Is a Dancer" and Robin S's "Show Me Love" topped the charts around the world and finally brought house music into the mainstream.

♪ I need your love ♪ - Now people have ways to share their mixes, now people have ways to talk to each other, to invite each other in.

- I've heard house music in Sydney, Australia.

- When I went to South Africa, I was out at a house club and someone asked me where I was from.

I said Chicago, and they were like, "That's where house music started.

Do you know Smart Bar?"

I was like, you gotta be kidding me.

So we completely are global ambassadors of this thing.

- Dancing on a beach in Sri Lanka on New Year's Eve to house music and it was just like, yes, this is it.

We have taken over the world.

- [Narrator] Even as the house music phenomena spread worldwide, its roots remained firmly in Chicago.

The city has recognized the impact of house, honoring its pioneers with street names, none bigger than Frankie Knuckles Way, located in front of the Warehouse.

- I just think it's a wonderful thing and I spoke to Barack Obama last night.

He put it real, he was like, "We just think that you're a treasure and you deserve all of this."

So that kind of got me all choked up.

(laughs) It's nice when you're just going through your life, doing what you're doing and having a good time, and then all of a sudden, someone comes along and surprises you with something like this, something really serious like this, and I couldn't be more thrilled, actually.

- [Narrator] President Obama, a passionate fan of house music, would do more than offer words of praise for Knuckles.

He would thrill a crowd of 45,000 house devotees gathered for the annual Chosen Few picnic.

- Hello, Chicago.

Happy 4th of July, everybody.

Michelle and I are sorry we can't be home with all the house heads in Jackson Park today.

- [Narrator] For the past three decades, house heads have come from across the globe to enjoy the music and family atmosphere.

The event was founded by one of the most widely recognized house music DJ collectives in the world, the Chosen Few, Andre Hatchett, Jesse Saunders, Tony Hatchett, Alan King, and founder Wayne Williams were the original members.

Terry Hunter and Mike Dunn were added later.

- You know, I look at Chosen Few, I look at what Alan and Terry and Jesse do on the south side.

It's beautiful.

♪ I wanna say ♪ ♪ And I wanna thank you for all that you've done ♪ - [Narrator] Just as Knuckles was a major force in Chicago, the city also greatly impacted him.

- Chicago's influenced me in every way and largely because of the people that I'm surrounded by.

In Chicago, people make eye contact with you, and when they do, they say hello.

Nowhere else in the world do you get it the way you get it here.

It says a lot because it makes you feel like you belong.

I know that a lot of young people here in Chicago respect what it is that I do and where I come from and my history.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] On March 31st, 2014, Frankie Knuckles passed away from complications of diabetes.

He was 59 years old.

The Frankie Knuckles Foundation was founded that same year.

- When he passed, Frederick and I were on the phone that following day, basically, you know, grieving, but also beginning to put in place the building blocks of the Frankie Knuckles Foundation and how were we going to continue to honor him in ways that he would look upon fondly.

- So we formed a foundation which is dedicated to some of the causes that he was passionate about.

Music in schools, LGBTQIA+, youth homelessness, AIDS awareness and prevention, and diabetes research and education.

- [Narrator] The foundation also worked tirelessly to have the Warehouse at 206 South Jefferson designated as an official Chicago landmark.

- Today, the City Council approved the landmark status for the Warehouse - Globally, the Warehouse started a revolution, a cultural music revolution, and with the preservation team and with the Frankie Knuckles Foundation like minds came together and helped make a difference.

- I think that the reason that it went so smoothly was people's love of Frankie, people's love for Robert, people's love for the club and what it meant to Chicago.

- [Narrator] As the giants of house music move on, the doors open for new talent.

- They are bold.

I love this culture.

Some of it is very naive, but they feel they deserve space and they feel they deserve things and they have the audacity to go out and do it and not wait on someone to appoint them to something or not wait on somebody, a gatekeeper to let them in.

They are creating space.

- House chose me as much as I chose house.

Once I fell in love with it, it was the mission, it was the movement.

It was what I thought about when I woke up.

It became one of the most important things in my life.

- I'm a leftist.

I'm an abolitionist.

I think that's why I'm an artist, why I'm a musician, because I don't like to participate in a system that was built to oppress us from the start, just more and more subconsciously, but it's still there.

So many of my DJ mentors, they're like, "If I wasn't a DJ, if I didn't have juice bars, if I didn't have these members clubs, I would be in jail."

And I 100% believe it.

- We have to teach the children what our culture was, what the music is, what it meant what it's supposed to mean, and continue to tell that story.

- We have to kind of guide them, but also let them come in and bring their individuality and their voice to the conversation.

- [Narrator] The story of house is bigger than the music.

It's about the feeling, the people, the community, the connection, and the culture.

- There's also something about the dancing, what it does when you dance with another human, when you move your body for the goal of joy and ecstasy and freedom and liberation in your body, it just does something.

It connects you so much quicker than a conversation.

- Every time we talk about house, we go directly to the DJs and directly to producers, but house culture and house anything would not be without the congregation, without the dancing, without the people who come, you wouldn't have a scene.

- The story of house music is one of the most untold stories about American music because it's influenced so many genres in such a profound and pronounced way.

- While the music was the spark, the community is what keeps it alive.

You can disagree about where it came from and who named it and what's this and what's that.

Ultimately, none of that matters because when the DJ is playing and the people are dancing and they're moving, art is being created in that moment.

Magic is being created in that moment.

(upbeat music)