ESSENTIALS

frankie knuckles

Known as the “godfather of House Music” specifically in Chicago in the 1980s. He began playing in “The Warehouse” in 1977 a nightclub almost exclusive to black gay men. House is a term that comes as a shortened version of “The Warehouse”. In 1982 he established himself as a great DJ, starting his own club called the Power Plant. He continued to play his signature mixture of Disco, Indie-Label Soul, Rock and European Synth-disco, creating House music as we know it today. In 1983 Knuckles bought his first drum machine, that came to define Chicago House music as the combination of bare, insistent drum machine pulses and disco classics. For the rest of his career he continued being a force in the house scene until 2014 when he died due to Type II diabetes.

ron hardy

Hardy started his career in 1974 in Den One, a gay club in Chicago. When Frankie Knuckles left the Warehouse in 1982, he replaced him. Hardy differentiated himself from other artists, as he had less regard for sound quality and played with a manic energy, mixing almost all genres that come to mind. He also tended to pitch records up way more than Knuckles (pitch being the difference between normal speed and the speed at which the record is currently playing. Usually expressed as + or -, with 8 being maximum/minimum) adding to his upbeat style. Hardy had great influence on the Chicago house scene of the 1980s, and is considered to be one of the pioneers of House music.

larry levan

Larry Levan is widely known for his ten years in Paradise Garage, New York. There, he developed a cult following that referred to his sets as “Saturday Mass”. Influential Post-disco DJ François Kevorkian said that Levan introduced the aesthetic of dub into dance music. His experiments with drum machines and synthesizers eventually transformed into what we know as House music. He began working in Paradise Garage in 1977. This club was open to a select membership and placed in an unadorned building on King Street in Greenwich Village. The club and Levan’s got popular and eventually entered the mainstream charts, as some of this DJ's music got on the national dance charts in various occassions.

deadmau5

Joel Thomas Zimmerman, known as deadmau5, has received six Grammy Awards for his genre-bending work, but his impact in the music business goes far beyond that. The canadian, sometimes controversial, superstar has produced tracks such as Strobe, Ghost n´Stuff or The Veldt, which have been more than enough to get millions of people to like his music. He's one of the most popular House artists working today and he has even become an icon for the eccentric mouse head he wears at concerts. On various lists, he's considered one of the best DJs of all time.

eric prydz

Under the nicknames of Tonja Holma, Pryda or Cirez D, swedish DJ and producer Eric Sheridan Prydz has gathered a cult following. His signature features go from uplifting chord progressions to aggressive leading sounds and they are all present in his latest studio album, Opus. With gems such as as Pjanoo, Call On Me and Every Day, other producers can only dream of getting such admiration in the House and EDM scene.