The Queer History of House Music in NYC

Credit: Tambourine or Machine

House Music has two main things in common with Disco - they both emerged from black queer underground movements in big cities, including New York City, and they both eventually evolved into different styles leading to a new music scenario where LGBTQ+ folks were left behind. With pop music embracing once again electronically produced sounds, repetitive lyrics, and four-on-the-floor beats (as you can hear on new songs by Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue, and Jessie Ware), it’s time to remember where everything started. So let’s say it one more time: House Music’s origin is black and queer. 

House Music - a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a steady pulse and often accompanied by instruments such as piano, guitar, bass guitar, and double bass - was a response to the anti-disco movement at the end of the 70s. In 1977, disco took over the radios thanks to the film Saturday Night Fever and its polished disco soundtrack recorded by Bee Gees. Even though it wasn’t the best example of disco and the story of the film was completely whitewashed, that’s how the style became mainstream. Record labels flooded the market with disco songs, and by 1979, disco had put rock out of the Top 40. 

Not everyone was happy to see a style of music predominantly black and queer conquering the radios back then. The first official city ordinance that even acknowledged sexual orientation as a protected class, The Human Rights Ordinance, only passed in 1988. So back in the 70s and most of the 80s, queer people were still forced to be underground. Steve Dahl, a radio show host, was one of the first to use his space to preach against disco and start the Disco Sucks movement, which is rooted in anti-blackness and anti-queerness. In 1979, Dahl promoted the Disco Demolition Night at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, where he exploded disco records with dynamites and invited the crowd to smash them.

The anti-disco movement grew exponentially and suddenly it wasn’t “cool” to like disco. In just over eight weeks, the number of disco songs on the Billboard Top 10 went from six to zero, and disco artists, like Nile Rodgers, were blacklisted. 

The Loft Parties

DJ David Mancuso became popular for throwing parties at his loft in New York City in the early 70s. Gay himself, Mancuso created a safe space for LGBTQ+ people to express themselves and be celebrated. “He defined the latter-day notion of a DJ not as someone who played records, but as someone who could manipulate music to create an atmosphere and tell a story; to – in that oft-abused cliche – take the crowd on a journey”, Alexis Petridis wrote on The Guardian. 

The DJ, obsessed with constantly improving the sound experience for his guests, had a few protegees, including Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles, who were too gay and would both later become the pioneers of House Music. 

Levan and Knuckles took their musical experience to the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in New York City, where they continued to play for gay men who wanted to enjoy the night in a safe space. Eventually, Knuckles moved to Chicago where he became a DJ resident at The Warehouse. Levan stayed in New York working with DJ Ron Hardy, and getting involved in the drag scene. 

The Warehouse Music 

In 1983, Yamaha Corporation released the first Yamaha DX7, an affordable digital synthesizer with drum machine sounds that enable underground producers to create new sounds. In the same year, Knuckles bought a drum machine and started to experiment with different sounds. From the combination of the drum machine with disco classics, House Music was born.

House was an abbreviation of the Warehouse, where Knuckles used to play. In fact, The Warehouse became so popular because of his music that it was flooded with white and straight patrons. Knuckles left the club and opened his own Power Plant. 

At the same time in New York City, Levan had become the main DJ at the Paradise Garage, an underground music venue on King Street, downtown. Following the steps of his friends, Knuckles and Mancuso, he also started mixing instrument sounds with disco. At first, his style was called Garage Music, but it eventually merged with House Music and the style became a hit. 

House Music was then known for the perfect mixture of soul diva vocals with synthesizer-driven sounds. A few masterpieces of this era were Your Love by Franki Knuckles (1987), Can You Feel It by Mr. Fingers (1987), Move Your Body by Marshall Jefferson (1986), and Music is The Key by J.M Silk (1985). 

The Queer Erasure 

When the AIDS epidemic hit the world in the 80s, everything related to queer culture was labeled as bad by society, including dance music and the nightlife scene of New York City. The House Music popularity started to decline, while a version of the style, Acid House, was being embraced by a largely heterosexual crowd. 

Because of the AIDS crisis, queer clubs started to close their doors and dance music was eventually erased from the mainstream. Just like that, by the early 90s, House Music had faded away. 

"Nobody is really denying that disco emerged out of queer nightlife. But as the house turns into acid-house turns into techno and all of the other sub-genres, somehow queer folks slip out of the established narrative and disappear,” Luis Manuel-Garcia, author of An Alternate History of Sexuality in Club Culture, told Vice. 

In New York City, one episode is remembered as a symbolic end of the queer dance scene. In 1996, the white American club promoter Michael Alig and his roommate, Freeze Riggs, murdered fellow Club Kid Andre "Angel" Melendez in a confrontation over a drug debt. They were sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison, and the case was used by conservatives to erase queer culture from the media. 

House in Contemporary Music 

House has always influenced Pop Music. You can hear it in Madonna’s Hung Up (2005), and Pharrel’s Get Lucky (2013), for example. However, since 2020, it is gaining more space on the radio. Jessie Ware’s What’s Your Pleasure?, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, Lady Gaga’s Chromatica, and Kylie Minogue’s Disco are all influenced by disco and house music and were all released in 2020. 

In 2022, it’s Beyoncé’s time to approach the genre with the release of Act 1 - Renaissance. The first single of the album, Break My Soul, is the perfect example of how House Music can be powerful and entertaining. Break My Soul is also influenced by NOLA Bounce Music, which became clear with featured artist Big Freedia, a trans rapper from New Orleans. 

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