Jesse Saunders and Vince Lawrence are among the interviewees featured in the 90-minute film A new documentary digging into the queer Black origins of house premiered at Sundance Film Festival last month. Directed by filmmaker Elegance Bratton, Move Ya Body: The Birth Of House looks at the infamous 1979 Disco Demolition night and its bearing on the [...]
We chat to some of Soho House’s music friends – Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Norman Jay MBE and Giles Smith (Secretsundaze) – to get their take on dance music and the inspirational figures that made our playlist this month Listen here With a nod to Black History Month, our new Dance Music Is Black [...]
Four decades on from a record that changed the world of dance music forever, Meena Sears speaks to house music scholars, including Jesse Saunders, and traces the evolution of the culture 2024 marks 40 years since the release of Jesse Saunders’ seminal track ‘On & On’. While there is some debate around it, ‘On & On’ is widely considered [...]
The legendary house DJ crafts an expertly balanced dance floor odyssey. Honey Dijon started her career nearly 25 years ago in her hometown of Chicago. From house music's inception, she lived and breathed the genre—and took any DJ gig she could get (even going so far as saying she would DJ out of a [...]
The Smiley logo—broad smile on a round, yellow face—is probably the most immediately recognisable insignia in rave culture. In fact, it’s probably one of the most recognisable images in all of music history. Such is the power of their brand, that since its inception 50 years ago in the days of acid house and the free-rave [...]
Saving classic house music DJ sets from oblivion, one compressed mp3 file at a time. SYNC is another new feature for 5 Mag, which you can probably describe it in as few words as possible as “a new mix series for old mixes.” There’s more to it than that, of course. A few years back [...]
Lost mix from the Chicago house icon Paul Johnson originally posted around Thanksgiving 2012. We’ve been searching for a proper way to post all this stuff from 5 Mag’s 18 19 years of history that slipped through the cracks. This series, SYNC, is our way to revisit that history in a respectful way and not just dump [...]
The label will release a new three-track EP in July Legendary Chicago house artist Mike Dunn has announced he will relaunch his influential Danca Mutha imprint after three decades. Founded by Dunn back in 1988, the label released music by artists such as MD Connection, Gershon Jackson, and I-ROC-T. Dunn also co-founded seminal [...]
TO MARK THE ostensible 40th anniversary of Chicago house music, Derrick Carter and DJ Heather will headline a free event at Chicago’s Daley Plaza, which begins at noon on May 29. House Music 40 has teamed with the ARC Music Festival to produce the event, which Mother Diva will host. It’s the first of several events the city is [...]
If you’re writing music for nightclub DJs, there is a formula you need to employ if you want them to play your tracks to a dance-floor. Here’s how to set up your tracks for success. Dropping science The term ‘Dance Music’ can relate to anything from Techno to EDM, House Music to Drum n’ [...]