House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 115–130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat. By early 1988, house became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat.
Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the original house music DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture.
Francis Warren Nicholls Jr., known professionally as Frankie Knuckles, was an American DJ, record producer, and remixer. He played an important role in developing and popularizing house music, a genre of music that began in Chicago during the early 1980s and subsequently spread worldwide. In 1997, Knuckles won the Grammy Award for Remixer of the Year, Non-Classical. Due to his importance in the development of the genre, Knuckles was often called "The Godfather of House Music".
Wax Trax! Records is an American independent record label based in Chicago. It began as a record shop in Denver, Colorado, opened by life partners Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher, who sold the store in 1978 and moved to Chicago. In November of that year, they opened a store under the same name in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. During the 1980s and 1990s, the accompanying record label became a strong presence on the industrial music scene as well as the punk rock scene in Chicago, and an outlet for European bands. The label was purchased by TVT Records in 1992 and was discontinued in 2001. In 2014, it was re-established by Julia Nash, daughter of co-founder Jim Nash.
FFRR Records is a dance music label founded as a subsidiary of London Records in 1986, with A&R run by the British DJ Pete Tong. Originally a part of London Records' label roster, FFRR is currently a sublabel of Parlophone, a division of Warner Music Group. Its activities were mostly halted in the early 2000s, until the label was revived in 2011. Its catalog was sold off in 2017, but the label was revived a second time in 2021, this time with a new identity.
Farley "Jackmaster" Funk is an American musician, DJ and record producer of Chicago house and acid house music. He is notable for writing and producing a number of highly influential tracks in the mid and late 1980s.
Trax Records is an American independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It played a major part in the development of house music.
Shock Records was an Australian independent record label, branded with the logo Shock or Shock Australia. Founded in 1988, it traded as Shock Records Pty. Ltd, and its publishing arm as Shock Music Publishing Pty. Ltd. Its most prominent sublabel was Permanent Records. After going into receivership in August 2010, company assets were bought by Regency Media Group, and the company was rebranded Shock Entertainment. Regency Media folded in February 2023.
Nathaniel Pierre Jones, better known by his stage name DJ Pierre, is an American DJ and performer of house music based in Chicago.
Carlos Sosa, known as DJ Sneak, is a Puerto Rican-born American DJ and record producer raised in Chicago, Illinois, United States. He is noted as being one of the second wave of Chicago house producers, as well as a member of the vanguard of late-1990s United States house producers.
Jesse Saunders is an American house music artist, DJ, record producer, film producer and entrepreneur. Saunders' 1984 single, "On & On", co-written with Vince Lawrence, is widely regarded as the first house music record to be pressed and sold to the public. Since his emergence as a DJ, Saunders has run several independent labels and worked in music and film production, as well as artist promotion and management. Saunders is also a long-time member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Chicago, Illinois is a major center for music in the midwestern United States where distinctive forms of blues, and house music, a genre of electronic dance music, were developed.
Peter Frank Adshead, better known as Baby Ford, is a British electronic music record producer, known particularly for his contributions to the birth of acid house. He has also released material under aliases with Mark Broom, Thomas Melchior, and Eon.
Armando Gallop, who released material under his first name only, was an American house-music producer and DJ who was an early contributor to the development of acid house.
Harry Dennis is a house music producer and lyricist from Chicago, United States, who was part of the original generation of house music in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Lee Foss is a record producer and DJ from DeKalb, Illinois. In addition to a number of releases on labels such as Culprit, Wolf+Lamb and No. 19, he co-founded the dance music label Hot Creations and is a member of the house music band Hot Natured alongside Jamie Jones, Ali Love and Luca C. He is also the founder of tech house record label, Repopulate Mars, and its sublabel, South of Saturn.
Dusty Groove is a Chicago-based online record store specializing in new and vintage jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop, world, rare, collectible, and vinyl records and CDs.
Steven Tang, also known as Obsolete Music Technology is a house music DJ and producer.
Steve Poindexter is an American house producer and DJ. He is best known for his 1989 track "Work That Mutha Fucker", which is considered to be one of the first Chicago ghetto house tracks.
Work That Mutha Fucker is the debut EP by American house producer Steve Poindexter, released in 1989.
