Jersey club
- •
Question in the Form of An Answer: An Interview with Chicago Ghetto House Legend, Parris Mitchell
As far as Chicago dance labels go, the ’90s belonged to Dance Mania. Run by Ray Barney, owner of Barney’s Records, it fed the streets with a steady stream of 12″s for over a decade, and is responsible in no small part for the birth of ghetto house. After a decade of inactivity, the label was reborn last year. Strut Records has just released Hardcore Traxx: Dance Mania Records, 1986-1997, a celebration of the first phase of its life. We talked to Parris Mitchell aka Victor Romeo, one of its key artists about his work, the label, and what makes ghetto house so compelling. — Adam Wray
Adam Wray: Your musical life began way before you started making house records – could you tell me about some of your earliest musical experiences?
Parris Mitchell: Oh, wow. I started out playing guitar during the disco era. Like, 1976 is when I started playing guitar. So, I come from the era where there wasn’t any sequencers or MIDI. I come from the era where you ha
- •
Ghetto house
Sub-genre of house music
Ghetto house or booty house[1][2][3][4][5] is a subgenre of house music which started being recognized as a distinct style from around 1992 onwards.[1] It features minimal 808 and 909drum machine-driven tracks[6] and sometimes sexually explicit lyrics.
The template of classic Chicago house music (primarily, "It's Time for the Percolator" by Cajmere) was used with the addition of sexual lyrics.[1] It has usually been made on minimal equipment with little or no effects. It usually features either a "4-to-the-floor"[7]kick drum or beat-skipping kick drums such as those found in the subgenre "juke" (full sounding, but not too long or distorted) along with Roland808 and 909synthesizedtom-tomsounds, minimal use of analogue synths, and short, slightly dirty sounding (both sonically and lyrically) vocalssamples, often repeated in various ways. Also common are 808 and 909 clap sounds, and full "rapped" verses and choruses.
Ghetto house music artists in
- •
DJ Deeon and Parris Mitchell on how Dance Mania changed house forever
In light of DJ Deeon’s passing, revisit this interview with the ghetto house pioneer first published in 2015.
Born in the mid 1980s, Dance Mania was the snarling upstart that tore through the streets of Chicago with its relentless breakdowns of italo disco, house and techno. Blood brothers DJ Funk, DJ Milton, Slugo, DJ Deeon and Jammin’ Gerald positioned Dance Mania’s style as the roundhouse kick to the gut of the smooth, sassy house music that dominated the city, and the world beyond. Splicing together little more than 808 kicks, rapid-fire piano hooks and vocal samples that were as filthy as they were funny, and playing it with a “fuck you, we’ve arrived” attitude, these pioneers shook neighbourhood parties and earned the new, raw style the name “ghetto house”.
Not everyone in Chicago took these aggressive, cheeky upstarts to heart: the kickback against the label was gradual but brutal. Dance Mania artists struggled for major bookings on home turf, so local affection waned. Frustration was channelle
Copyright ©airtory.pages.dev 2025