House Music 101: The History, Volume I An Oral Archive of the Architects
You think you know House music. You don't. What you have is incomplete. The truth in these pages hits like bass drop. House Music 101: The History goes back to before the sound had a name, before the narrative was rewritten, before trends, technology and algorithms decided what survives. House was born among the marginalized who created something the industry commercialized, monetized, segmented, gentrified then laid claim.
Unless you were there, what reached you came filtered, whitewashed and often distanced from the people who built it. Before the industry framing, what we now call House music was born in community, built in resistance. It was survival, sanctuary and sound. This is that history while it can still be told by those who lived it.
Easy Mo Bee unpacks the culture which gave birth to new sounds without severing from its roots. Al Magliano of "The Legends of Vinyl" leads preservation. David "Clappy" Felton, eldest member of David Mancuso's "The Loft", NYC tells of the blueprint that put the community first.
Meet John Eddy, founder of Washington D.C.'s Clubhouse. Pre-Larry Levan. Pre-Garage. Get up close with Danny Tenaglia who gave us "Music Is The Answer" and James "D-Train" Williams who gave us "Keep On" anthems on the dancefloor decades later. Architecture in record form.
Alex Almedina and Divine Ellison of The Loft's 99 Prince Street crew, put memory before myth. Chris Flowers, who managed the legendary Tony Humphries - Yellorange opens up those meeting rooms. DJ Jay Jay lays out The Clubhouse rise while Chris Randolph "Chosen" moves it forward.
This is not nostalgia. It's correction. House music is a movement. This is where the feeling begins.
Volume 1 is not the end, this History continues in Volume 2.
This is not nostalgia. This is documentation.
Interviews / Stories include:
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- Al Magliano
- Alex Almedina
- Chris Flowers
- Chris Randolph (Chosen)
- Danny Tenaglia
- David Felton
- Devine Ellison
- DJ Jay Jay
- DJ Punch
- D-Train
- John Eddy
- Jovonn
- J.P. Steinberg (White Owl)
