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I will never know what it’s like to live here, and don’t claim to, I know I’ve only seen a fraction of what the hood is all about, but I certainly learned some things. It was nice to see the positive things in the hood – the families, the playgrounds, the community spirit, but it was also disheartening to see and hear that a lot of the unsavoury things are just as bad as they’re made out to be. It’s easy to talk about gangs and the “thug life”, but something I found interesting about the hood is just how many contradictions there are. You see gang members, prostitutes and crack addicts on one street, and just around the corner are families enjoying themselves, neighbours sharing food at a front yard cookouts, and children playing at the park. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to get out of the hood if you’re born in it. I was surprised to see vacant lots that James said used to house structures before the riots.
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Crowds would gather outside the gates, eager to catch a glimpse of the athletes living there. At times as we stopped the car, got out, took a few photos and hopped back inside, it did feel like we were being disrespectful to the people who live here. However, it’s not like I could safely get a bus to the area and stroll around by myself. When I raised the topic with James, he responded that it was good that people were starting to be interested in a part of Los Angeles that had long been neglected by just about everyone. James said there are generally 2 kinds of people who come on these tours – those who think that the “thug life” is glamorous and those who genuinely want to learn more about the hood.
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Remembering DJ Deeon, the Low End King That Brought the Funk · Feature RA - Resident Advisor
Remembering DJ Deeon, the Low End King That Brought the Funk · Feature RA.
Posted: Tue, 25 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Most of these custom pieces are based on their colors, on their feeling [and] on their albums,” said Baez. “I was sitting there on the street in front of the MGM and I started receiving a lot of messages and calls,” said Baez. At the time, the factory was a leather manufacturer for several large American brands. This meant the Baez family had no input as to what they made. This arrangement often confused and frustrated the young creative, who longed to see the Baez name on the clothes they produced.
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Remembering the Life and Legacy of DJ Deeon - Beatportal
Remembering the Life and Legacy of DJ Deeon.
Posted: Thu, 20 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
For decades, economic racism has forced many residents of the Baldwin Hills to go west to shop and eat out. “Watts, which was miles away, was evidently too close for comfort for a lot of the white people who were living in these areas, and they started moving further west,” he says. In a 1962 letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times, a white resident in Baldwin Hills sniffed dismissively that Black people “wanted to be white.” The following week, L.A. Resident Anne Thompson issued a passionate rebuttal, explaining that Black Angelenos of means were escaping neighborhoods where they faced lack of police protection, woefully unequal public services, and inadequate schools. The almost exclusively white neighborhoods in the Baldwin Hills slowly began to change in the 1950s, after the Supreme Court struck down the enforcement of racially restrictive covenants in 1948.
‘Da Disco Tekk’ (Factory Music Chicago)
He didn't have kids but I did, so life slowed me down. A guy called Steve Bicknell and his girlfriend Sheree Rashit ran a label called Cosmic Records. I'd done some tracks for them and they booked me and DJ Milton to come over here.
Most of the babies are the new generation of Baldwin Hills residents. Residents up the hill, many who sent their children to private schools, were part of numerous Black civic organizations. There were social clubs like The Links, which hosted the premiere Black debutante balls in the city, the leadership organization Jack and Jill, and fraternities like Alpha Phi Alpha. McNeill recalls numerous transplants from Louisiana, known as the “LA, LA” folks.
Despite the fact that you’re in no way racist and that it sounds wrong if you don’t say it and censor yourself, bottom line is you can’t say it, and you don’t. I have a full awareness of the pro and cons of “ghetto/slum tourism” and appreciate the fact in being able to visit the hood, take a look around, and leave, I was in a particular position of privilege. I think that what's funny about Chicago house is that a lot of old stuff is being sped up to 120, 125BPM.
This EP comes with an example of Deeon’s take on the emerging juke and footwork genres that began brewing from ghetto house in the early 2000s. These hyper-rhythmic, 808-led, syncopated sounds were pioneered by names such as RP Boo, DJ Clent, DJ Rashad and Waxmaster, where ghetto house DJs began playing 33 rpm records at 45 rpm speeds to soundtrack footwork dances. Here, we hear comedic vocals delivering crude and catchy lyrics over a bopping, rhythmic beat that fuses elements of acid with the ghetto house sound. Deeon extends his playful, pioneering MC style by using a different voice to emulate a separate ‘female’ persona that makes sexual advancements towards his character. This practice of sexual conversations between male and “female” voices became fairly common in the scene, breeding hilarious, dance-worthy results like DJ Nasty’s cheeky 2006 ‘Child Support’ track.
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He later formed a short-lived band with Kevin Irving (best known for house classic ‘Children of the Night’), who Mitchell says was “like a brother” to him. When that band broke up, Irving and Mitchell starting making house music, hitting the Muzic Box and the Warehouse during Ron Hardy’s storied run. There was a London club night called Wide, which championed ghetto house and the Detroit scene it inspired, Ghettotech, but that ended years ago, mostly owing to a lack of interest.
This release came under the moniker Low End Theory, one of DJ Deeon's many aliases, and perfectly displays the multifaceted nature of his production style. Side A leans more towards ghetto tech than ghetto house. It encompasses the futuristic, wet, digital synth bassline-driven sounds that govern electro and acid, particularly present in the A1 cut ‘Wicked’ and the zaps and wicked laughs that can be heard in A3's ‘Studio Gs’. The B-side opens with Deeon displaying the crude, improvisational sounding style of MCing over Chi-house beats in ‘F_CK U’, a style common amongst fellow Dance Mania pioneers like DJ Funk and DJ Slugo.
They listen to everything on YouTube—they put things in playlists. Deeon, as you'll hopefully know, is a pivotal part of the Dance Mania story. For those of you who've been living inside a wi-fi-less cave for the last thirty years, Dance Mania is the last word in stripped back, raw, and (usually) incredibly rude minimal house music. It's music that Deeon himself describes as being "for the strippers, for the street". Alongside other Windy City luminaries like DJ Funk, DJ Milton and Paul Johnson, Deeon and the Dance Mania crew created the blueprint for a new kind of house music. My experience of playing ghetto house records has been slightly less exciting.
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