The night that changed the future of modern dance music forever took place at The Warehouse, a seedy gay/Latino nightclub, overseen by the musical tastes of none other than supreme disco DJ Frankie Knuckles. With the huge pile of disco he possessed and the recent birth of modern electronics, Knuckles took existing portions of his favourite disco tracks and added other elements such as faster beats, vocals or atmospherics. His only limit was his gear and his own imagination.
Frankie Knuckles played his home-brewed styles to a rapturous crowd at The Warehouse. It was this adoring crowd that eventually gave birth to the word ‘house’ – a simple shortening of ‘The Warehouse’. Soon after, Chicagoans everywhere started to refer to Knuckles’ sexy new musical brew as ‘house music’. Modern dance music had now officially been born. But no one could have predicted exactly how long the fire underneath this new musical genre would remain lit.
Now that the diamond tip of dance music had officially dipped into the strobe-lit grooves of musical understanding, house songs such as Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley’s ‘Jack Your Body’ and ‘Someday’ by CeCe Rogers were able to cement house music as a genre, with ‘Jack Your Body’ even climbing the 80s UK charts all the way to number one. In the words of Frankie Knuckles, ‘house was like church for people who had fallen from grace’. It was about acceptance, being happy and feeling free.
In the wake of the birth of house music, other sub genres of dance music were also conceived. Modern dance genres include jacking house, electro house, techno, trance, progressive, deep house, funky house, minimal, acid house, jazz house and more. South Africa is a country passionate about dance music, especially house. House music outsells Madonna and the late King of Pop in South Africa, and by global standards our dance music industry, DJs and producers are right up there with the best.
Festivals, parties and celebrations of the dance music genre can be found in nearly every city on Earth. The UK has always had a hugely famous dance culture, culminating in events such as Fatboy Slim’s Beach Boutique and SW4 on Clapham Common. Germany’s Love Parade sees over 200, 000 people getting down in the streets. Even South Africa features with the ultra-slick H20 in Joburg, now the biggest day rave in the southern hemisphere. There is no shortage of passionate support for dance music in every form!
For some, the most beautiful part of dance music is that it grows as fast as technology grows. Each year, new means of mixing, matching, creating and recreating beats and bass lines becomes easier and more intuitive. Even though dance music is nearly 30 years old, year on year it never seems to age.
Ever found yourself trying to explain to someone what constitutes dance music? Firstly, grab a glow stick from your pocket and dip them over the head with it! Then tell them that dance music can best be described as up-tempo, between 115 and 135 beats per minute, featuring a dominating kick drum on every beat, with the addition of a hi-hat between each kick. Twists of bass are added, complimenting other electronic sounds, funky instruments and vocals. From there on, it’s a pure feeling!
