The Home Inside Us
What do we take with us when we leave the place that shaped us?
I miss Frankie Knuckles.
I never knew him personally. But I’ve long admired him. After all, the renowned Godfather of House music found a way to refashion his disco records in novel ways night after night for queer and Black dancers at The Warehouse in Chicago. He passed all too soon a little over a decade ago at the age of 59. But his impact on the music world remains timeless.
As Hal Rubenstein wrote in his commemoration of Frankie in the New York Observer in 2014:
That’s what made Frankie Knuckles the best DJ ever. When it became his turn to get behind the turntables, he never forgot music’s spirit lifting sorcery, but more importantly, its carnal power. It didn’t matter whether Frankie was playing at the Warehouse in Chicago, at The Saint in New York, or as he did so often late in his career, along the tongue-kissed shores of Ibiza and Mykonos. Unlike too many of his successors, Frankie mystically and magically gathered the crowd, extended his thick outstretched arms and led us on a journey to happiness, not frenzy. His music wasn’t dark or tribal. You never went into a trance because to him that was the exact opposite of the dance experience. When Frankie played, you were never lighter on your feet, more satisfied with your own body, more turned on by your own sweat and more willing to love the one you were with, often physically. With Frankie played, there was only ecstasy and passion —never pain. I miss his music so. His “Last Dance” has come too soon, for all of us.
The more I’ve waded into House music’s history, the more I’ve realized that so many of its originators had roots in New York City, where I grew up. Some (like Frankie) were born there. Others (like Honey Dijon) found sanctuary there.
Eventually, Frankie and other artists came and left. They carried the baggage of living in a gritty New York City along with the memories of a vastly diverse city rich in community. They started a cultural revolution that stays with us today.
Undoubtedly, the music they heard, the experiences they had, the people they met in the clubs and beyond—they all influenced how they saw the world as they moved from place to place. Whether you grew up in the Bronx or across the city in Brooklyn, you found kinship in one another from the shared experience of living in such a culturally dynamic city. You heard disco in the clubs alongside salsa and merengue in the streets and households. You grew up surrounded by soul and embraced early rhythm and blues. Eventually, the DJs and b-boys in the Bronx—and beyond—would not just define not just early hip-hop culture but also amplify the relationship between music, dance, and the culture they created.
All of those experiences gave way to innovation. Those are the things Frankie and other House pioneers carried with them wherever they went.
As DJ Disciple and Henry Kronk described in their book, The Beat, The Scene, The Sound, House music’s origin story is often told and retold from Chicago, but New York undoubtedly played an influence in shaping its heartbeat:
Although Frankie Knuckles made his mark in Chicago, he was born in the Bronx. He and his friend Larry Levan first learned how to DJ under the direction of Nicky Siano, who opened a club called The Gallery in SoHo in the early 1970s, which took its blueprint from David Mancuso’s venue The Loft. Levan would go on to become the resident DJ at the Paradise Garage and originate his own sub-genre of dance music (known as garage). … This was the world that Frankie Knuckles had come from.
While Chicago artists were making waves in the Midwest, an adjacent and interconnected generation of DJs and producers in New York were also developing the style. Besides Levan and Siano, Tony Humphries, Danny Krivit, Kenny Carpenter, Francois K, Timmy Regisford, D train, Sinnamon, the Peech Boys (fronted by Levan), and many others led the charge in the early 1980s that helped put house music on the map. they were soon followed by David Morales, Little Louie Vega, Kenny Dope Gonzalez, Jellybean Benitez, Todd Terry, Roger Sanchez, Junior Vasquez, David Camacho, Bobby Koners, and DJ Disciple.
We see these musical pioneers’ influence on dance floors worldwide where House music emerges one of the world’s most popular genres. You can feel its iconic rhythm—its driving four on the floor kick pattern, its sharp percussion, its solemn strings, its delicate piano stabs—across pop music. You hear it when Ariana Grande asks “yes, and?” and when Beyonce declares “you won’t Break My Soul.”
Notably, legendary dance music producers from Black Coffee to Honey Dijon (both of whom I consider inspirations) helped usher Drake’s and Beyonce’s albums into existence.
Long before she famously erupted in the dance music consciousness with her Boiler Room set at Sugar Mountain, Dijon, a Black trans DJ/producer and fashion icon, found kinship in New York. As Rich Juzwiak noted in the New York Times in 2019:
Dijon is a fastidious house-music griot, a musical historian who will not let anyone forget the form’s Black and queer roots, even as subgenres like EDM and tech house have strayed far from its origins. “Past, present, and future exist on a continuum,” she said. “And it’s just reintroducing things into now.”
Dijon likes to say that she was born in Chicago but grew up in New York, where she moved in the late ’90s. (She does not, however, like to say her age, calling the question “really sexist and horribly boring.”) As she does in her music, Dijon seeds her speech with references: During our two conversations, she quoted Laverne Cox, Marc Jacobs, Quincy Jones and Pepper LaBeija, best known for her wisdom-spouting turn in the 1990 ballroom documentary “Paris Is Burning.”
In New York, she said, she found her people.
Honey goes on to say that she “fell in love with the vibration of sound and music” in utero. As a child in Chicago, she encountered bullying yet found a way to sneak into the Music Box nightclub at the age of 13. In New York’s club scene, she found a “lifeline.”
That stuck with me. Through it all, she carried trauma and inspiration from Chicago to New York as she moved throughout the world. In Chicago, she found exposure to the soulful jackin’ House sound that would shape her for the years to come. And in New York, she felt the power of acceptance within community.
The Town Loves House Music
Lately, I’ve been thinking about migration. When we leave a place that’s shaped us, what do we take forward? What do we leave behind?
I left Brooklyn when I was 18 to go to college just north of Chicago. After a few years, I eventually moved to Oakland. I’ve been living in the Town for the last decade. Fittingly, early in Oakland’s history, one of its neighborhoods next to Lake Merritt was known as Brooklyn.
Yet I spend most of my time DJing in San Francisco.
Before I DJ’d in the city, I raved there. So when I started moving behind the decks, I explored what felt comfortable and stayed in the city. I was infatuated by deep and melodic House music, where the sonic experience felt almost orchestral in its gradual progression. Don’t get me wrong—I’m grateful for it. San Francisco has shaped my sound.
But I carry with me those 18 years in Brooklyn everywhere I go. We all bring our roots with us everywhere, whether DJ or dancer. just as each of you bring with you wherever you grew up, just as each Black and brown DJ did that night. We never forget where we come from. We never forget who came before us. We should also never forget how those who came before us influence us today.
And I never forget queer Black and Brown people who found escape in House and Disco in the undergrounds of Chicago, New York, Detroit, and elsewhere.
That’s the soul of House music.
As living in San Francisco has become increasingly unaffordable, the richness of its people has been shoved further and further into the outer reaches of the Bay Area. I rarely play to a room full of Black and brown dancers in the city, like Frankie did back in the day.
When I walked into Nosso in downtown Oakland with the Silk crew last Thursday, things felt different. I was clad in a black and white Yankees cap and panda Dunks, as well as a hooded sweatshirt with a simple message from Detroit’s KMS Records:
The Hood Needs House.
The Thursday night foray felt different from shows I’ve played in San Francisco. For the first time in a long time, I looked up from the decks and saw what Frankie saw. I felt what I imagine he might have felt while he watched people who looked like us revel in the music he loved. They danced. They lived in the moment. They respected one another and gave each other space. They embraced one another and shook their bodies as if to catch the lightning in the deep rhythm they were feeling inside.
I found what Frankie and so many others were searching for: Home.
A quick aside: I’d love for you to subscribe to this little meditative experience called a newsletter. If you’ve been to my shows as Black Panda, you know I love to stay connected to the people around me. Much love.
What’s Next?
March just keeps getting better. My friend and collaborator Ed Hofmann, an incredible producer who just released an acid-y remix for D. Ramirez, and I are joining the Kokolores Records family with the release of our track “To Be Mine” on March 14. You can pre-order the whole Miami Music Week compilation on Traxsource now, so go ahead. Here’s how we described this soulful 2-step release:
To Be Mine is a call for togetherness. The piano house-inspired track, grounded in a funky bassline, emotive strings, and a rhythm that swings between 2-step and 4 to the floor, reminds listeners that the past is always present. In To Be Mine, Ed Hoffman and Black Panda deliver a soulful experience that is both nostalgic and contemporary throughout time.
So, what else is happening?
Saturday, March 8 - vRok and Friends @ The Foundry (SF): When I first met vRok at F8, we gushed over our love for Chicago House music and the deep history behind the music we loved. Since then, we’ve collaborated on a few events (with more to come). This one celebrating her birthday is sure to be iconic. It’ll give Space Miami. Save the date.
Saturday, March 15 - Throwback Beats @ Spacement (SF). We’re bringing some classic House and Techno to an incredible community space in San Francisco. We’re keeping this one small and intimate from 7:30 pm - 12 a.m. If you’re interested, sign up.
Sunday, March 16 - Pandamonium, Fault Radio, and Friends Present: Soul Salon @ Studio Aurora (SF): I can’t wait to share all the details about this event we’re putting together, but it’s going to be special. Ed and I have been talking about his Sunday day party idea for a while now, and it’s finally coming to life. We’re so stoked to have Silk’s Seven7Seven (LEFTY B2B kilo.wav) and Disco Honey’s DoppelDJs (DJ Kinki B2B e’Lish) play for us at Fault Radio’s new space, Studio Aurora, in SF’s Mission District. Noon - 6 p.m. Save the date.
Friday, March 28 - The worldwide release of “To Be Mine” on Kokolores Records!
My partner and I are off to Australia for two weeks. If anybody from Sydney happens to be reading this, I’d love to play at one of your events. Maybe your iconic rooftops along the harbor? Here’s my Electronic Press Kit (EPK).
Saturday, May 31 - Pandamonium Presents: Paradise Found @ Bergerac (SF): We’re working through the details. But so far, we’re going to have audiovisuals, go-go dancers, and incredible soulful music. Save the date for now.
Let’s Not Forget
As a treat for making it to the end, here’s a pic of my beloved pup, Nano, and her cousins, Monty and Koda.
Edwin “Eddie” Rios is a Brooklyn-born, Oakland-based freelance writer and DJ/producer (Black Panda). You can find his writing life here. You can follow his musical journey here. Here’s his SoundCloud and Spotify. Share this with your friends.