Dance Music Is Still Losing Its Pioneers
Examining the genre's continued struggle to support, or even properly celebrate, its foundational figures while they're still alive.
DJ Funk passed away last week. He was 54 years old.
Boo Williams, another Chicago house hero, was hospitalized last month with multiple serious ailments. His family wound up posting a fundraiser to assist with the cost of his medical expenses and recovery, and a few days later Williams shared the first of several thank-you messages—which he has literally been recording from his hospital bed. He is 57 years old.
Back in 2023, DJ Deeon—who, like DJ Funk, was a ghetto house icon and one of the artists whose music made the Dance Mania label into a worldwide force—died after years of battling a series of major health problems. He was 56 years old.
This is disgraceful, and what’s worse is that it’s going to keep happening. In fact, it’s already been happening for years now, and following the deaths of house pioneers Paul Johnson and K. Hand—who both passed away during the same week in 2021—I wrote an article about this unsettling phenomenon here in First Floor.
The paywall on that article has now been removed, and will stay down through the rest of the week. I’m unlocking it today because, sadly, not much has changed during the nearly four years since the piece was first published. Simply put, the creators of house, techno, electro and other foundational dance music genres not only aren’t reaping the benefits of the music’s highly lucrative global explosion—they’re now dying off as well, often at troublingly young ages.
It’s not a coincidence that many of these artists are Black, as the average life expectancy of Black people in the US has long lagged behind that of their white counterparts. The cause of that is multifactorial, but whether one chooses to focus on poverty, pollution, education, food deserts, access to quality medical care or something else, the problem is a systemic one, and a clear signal of just how unequal American society continues to be. (For what it’s worth, people of color and minority populations frequently face similar struggles in countries around the world, but seeing as how what we now think of as modern dance music was initially forged in cities like Chicago, Detroit and New York, it seems appropriate to primarily focus on the US.)
Solving public health disparities, or even significantly addressing them, isn’t something that can really be done within the context of dance music. Yet as the above-referenced First Floor article lays out, the genre’s hands are far from clean. Dance music loves to toss around the word “legend,” but that title routinely fails to translate into bookings, sponsorships or other forms of significant financial support. Even non-financial support, such as media coverage or being part of the online “discourse,” can often prove elusive for these artists. When they fall ill or pass away, the accolades flow freely. But when they’re alive, plenty of legends are either deemed irrelevant, regarded solely as an object of nostalgia or, even worse, ignored altogether.
I wish I knew how to fix that. I don’t. Treating elders with respect isn’t something that many modern cultures do well, and considering how much dance music—which has always been extremely youth-oriented—actively markets itself as a bastion of futurism and constant reinvention, the fate of its surviving pioneers may not prove to be much better. In the meantime though, actively celebrating their work and legacy represents at least a small step in the right direction. Last month, long before word got out about DJ Funk’s illness and impending death, First Floor published a two-part Dance Mania retrospective, highlighting 30 tracks from the label’s expansive catalog. DJ Funk was in there. DJ Deeon and Paul Johnson were too, and so were a bunch of other artists, some of whom are likely familiar to any semi-serious house head, while others are probably unknown to all but the most committed record nerds.
Here’s part one:
And here’s part two:
Reading that retrospective—and yes, the paywall will be down through the rest of the week—won’t bring any legends back to life, but it will hopefully serve as a reminder that many of their colleagues and contemporaries are still very much alive. Dance music would be well advised to acknowledge and appreciate their contributions to the culture, before it’s too late.
Shawn Reynaldo is a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Instagram—and make sure to follow First Floor on Instagram as well—or you can just drop Shawn an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or potential work opportunities.