In professional football, no one was better at juking out defenders than Barry Sanders. Whereas the phrase “poetry in motion” is thrown around all-too-loosely with today’s sports analysts when describing how an athlete moves, Sanders was one of the most exciting players to watch of my generation. He seemed to turn a tackle-football game into two-hand-touch. When Sanders was in the open-field, defenses were lucky if their fingertips even grazed his jersey. The only thing the critics had negative to say about Sanders was that he did too much “dancing,” instead of just running straight-forward when his team needed him to.

However, that didn’t take away from his gaudy stats and insane highlight films. In the 1995 season, Sanders once juked Rod Woodson (a defender for the Pittsburgh Steelers) so bad that Woodson ruptured his own knee, causing him to have reconstructive surgery. (We have a cash reward for anyone who can find the video clip of this play on the internet.)

West of Detroit, where Sanders spent the duration of his career playing for the Lions, you can find equally dazzling juke moves going on. Ground zero: the birthplace of house and juke music, Chicago, Illinois.

One difference between Barry Sanders’ juke-out running style and Chicago’s native juke music and juke style dancing, footworking, or “jukin’,” is that critics and dance music aficionados alike, have acquired a soft spot for Chicago juke. This is, in part, thanks to Dude’ N’ Nem’s 2007 juke hit “Watch My Feet.” Though “Watch My Feet” was an anthem for juke dancers in Chicago, our interview subject, DJ Slugo, insists that juke is a “movement,” and that juke music should be mentioned synonymously with ghetto house music.

Regardless of what genre title you want to slap on it, the tempo hovers between 150-170 beats per minute, whereas most hip hop coming out of the South right now is only half that. However, one thing that separates juke from other genres of dance music is the always-entertaining tempo changes. Whereas other forms of house typically remain constant in tempo, juke’s super fast individuality makes half-speed change-ups sound refreshing, particularly when the repetitiveness of the music has all but hypnotized the listener (or totally vexed them, as you‘ll read later).

The numbing effect that slapdash juke tracks can have on the listener is something that DJ Slugo says “is a problem.” In this interview, you’ll also read about why he thinks that these traits of juke music have prevented juke and ghetto from opening up to wider audiences outside of Chicago.

Speaking of outside of Chicago, take Kansas City as a paradigm of contrast, where this very magazine is based out of. In Chicago, as opposed to KC and other medium sized cities in the Midwest, the black community has embraced their homegrown, uptempo dance music for nearly 20 years. Many black clubs in Chicago will actually have their DJs play hip hop early in the night, just to warm up the crowd for the house and juke tunes later. At an urban club in Kansas City (we‘ll use Zen as an example), if a DJ played the hip hop hits early in the night and dropped some “techno bullshit” at peak hour, he’d probably be fired, or booed at least. However, mixing elements of hip hop and dance music is nothing foreign to Chicago‘s hip hop artists, either.

During the early 90’s, Chicago-based rap artists like Do Or Die, Twista and Crucial Conflict, later Infamous Syndicate, and others, burst onto the national scene with their quick-tongued rhyming schematics. Twista (who back then went as “Tongue Twista”) even set a Guinness Book World Record for becoming the world‘s fastest rapper in 1992. These MCs in Chicago were rapping so fast because they grew up rhyming over house music.

Unfortunately, super-fast styles of music seem to only live as equally super-fast lives in the hearts and minds of club goers. One can look to the ultra-fast drum and bass styles, now comparable to a post-prime Willie Mays stumbling in the outfield, or an aging track star that’s lost a step. In recent years, many drum and bass DJs have abandoned the genre for greener pastures. A wise man once said that “If you live fast, you die fast,” and the same seems to go with some forms of dance music.

But as the “ghetto father of the American dance floor” and one juke pioneer DJ Slugo knows, juke is thriving in urban Chicago, and has been for years. Along with his esteemed colleague, DJ Deeon, Slugo has plans to bring the original ghetto label back from the dead, Dance Mania, later this year.

Before CEO Ray Barney discontinued the label, the matrix number for Dance Mania releases approached DM300 (that’s nearly 300 records released). Hence, Dance Mania is regarded by some as the greatest house music label ever. DJ Slugo, who had the second most Dance Mania releases, after Deeon, is over 20 albums and 50 street mixes deep in the game over the course of about 20 years.

We did a phone interview with Slugo wherein he spoke on the old rivalry between Detroit’s ghetto-tech artists and Chicago’s ghetto house DJs, the difference between jerry-built tracks and “actual songs,” why Daft Punk gave him a shout-out on their album “Homework,” and Slugo’s plans to start Dance Mania back up with DJ Deeon.

DEMENCHA: How would you describe juke to a stranger?

DJ Slugo: I would let them know that juke, itself, is not a dance or a particular type of music. It’s actually a movement or a statement. We used to say things like, “The party’s jukin‘,” or “they jukin’ over there.” If we were at the club, we were jukin’. A lot of people have taken it and said that it was juke music, when actually juke is a statement that people put a movement behind. People said it was juke dancing or juke music when it was actually ghetto house music, or booty house music. Each of those dances that the kids do have different names. So I would try to explain it to them in that form or fashion.

DEMENCHA: With the popularity of the internet, has music become delocalized?

DJ Slugo: The internet itself is like a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because people, who wouldn’t normally have been able to get on labels or heard in any form or fashion, can get on there and be heard everywhere, nowadays. They can be heard not only in their country, but outside of their country also. The flaw of that is that anybody can be heard. Not only can you put up the good music but you can put up the garbage as well. If you saturate the market with good music, you can also saturate the market with a bunch of garbage. It’s a blessing and a curse. A lot of these DJs are kind of arrogant now, and they didn’t pay their dues. You know what I’m saying? The internet has helped them to flourish further than what they are, which is no problem, but (some of these DJs) have only been DJs for like two years and they got a few internet hits. But that doesn’t make you on the level of someone who’s got like twenty years in, and was able to do it when the internet didn’t exist. A lot of them just don’t have respect. I know a lot of DJs who come to parties now and their mixes will be pre-mixed in their computer. But you don’t know that. You’ll be out there partying and you don’t really give a fuck. It might be one of your favorite DJs and you’re not really coming up to the computer to see what’s going on. There’s DJs who paid there dues who can’t even get a booking right now. There’s DJs who I got in my own crew who don’t even know what a pair of twelves look like. The internet’s cool, but it’s made it to where anyone can be a producer and anybody can be a DJ now and anybody can get their music out there now. That’s cool, on a professional scale. It’s great because people who are talented who couldn’t get heard because of God knows what, can be heard now. The major labels can’t strong arm people out of their music now because people are putting it out on their own now. But it also opens the door for people who think they’re good and they’re not.

DEMENCHA: Do sub-genres start out as local or even regional movements? With the internet, is it easier for a group from Germany to sound like a group from Chicago?

DJ Slugo: Sub-genres are something that are going to be around whether the internet is here or not. Sub-genres are like, “I hear music one way…” Sub-genres are really remixes. People will do the sub-genres but not have respect for where the actual genre is from. Just because you changed the name, doesn’t mean you actually changed the music. You can’t have old-school house and not say that it didn’t have anything to do with ghetto house. You can’t say that you have ghetto-tech, but it didn’t spring from ghetto house, when (ghetto-tech) was really just techno. Ghetto-tech came from ghetto house and techno. Don’t forget about the people who did the ghetto house and the people who did the techno before you mix those blends. (For us as ghetto house artists), we would be crazy to say that Steve Hurley didn’t influence us at all. That would be too disrespectful. Him, Farley, Jackmaster Funk, Jesse Saunders, Armando were the people who influenced us as we were coming up. We just decided that the music is just too slow for us now, so we decided to pitch it up. But we were a little more hood, and the music was more easy going, non-violent. But we didn’t come from that type of lifestyle. When we first heard shit like “I Beat That Bitch with a Bat” and “There’s Some Ho’s In This House”…hey that’s when we said, “that’s what we’re talking about!” When we were in a building with a bunch of whores in the house, that’s the song I want to hear. I don’t want to hear “It’s A Cold World” when there’s a bunch of naked women dancing around me. We still used the toms and the high hats and the kicks, we just changed it a little bit. So a lot of DJs and producers don’t respect where the original music came from and that’s the only problems I have with sub-genres.

DEMENCHA: DJ Nephets said in an article with the Fader last year, ““These remixes are strategically done so people can get used to hearing it.” Is there a scheme in the structure of juke music that makes it easier to accept by the listener? It seems like the more juke you hear the more you want.

DJ Slugo: The repetitiveness is the reason that the music hasn’t flourished any further than where it is at now. That’s one reason why ghetto house and juke music haven’t blew. People get tired of “Let’s go ho! Let’s go ho! Let’s go ho!”

DEMENCHA: Do you think that’s why “Watch My Feet” blew up?

DJ Slugo: Yes, because it was a song. They mixed it with (a kind of) up-to-date hip house. The people who end up doing songs are the people who end up standing out past other producers because they can actually sequence songs. The repetitiveness, to me, is a problem. If you were doing repetitive beats and hooks five years ago, you should’ve been flourishing a little further by now. You should at least be able to write eight bars. That’s what Deeon was notorious for. He wouldn’t do a song without rapping in it. He actually, is the person who structured that. (Songs like) “Big Booty Bitches” and “Let Me Bang” were some of the original songs where the rapping shit is going on. That shit inspired me, like, “Oh I can rap a little bit, too.” And Chicago’s got a problem with that, rappers rapping over house songs, they take that as “soft.” But if that’s the only way you’re going to get on the radio, that’s what you should do. Fast Eddie is very good at that. Me and him did a song for the Chicago LP and he was able to update it to keep up with the rap that’s going on right now. And a lot of rappers fall to the wayside because they don’t know how to do that. The repetitiveness is a problem because it also opens the door for DJs who are only a year or two in the game to come up with an easy hook. How many times you gonna “Get down low”? That was ten years ago. The repetitiveness is a problem and if people can’t do song structure, they need to step their game up. I’m trying to do songs with rappers and singers now. I’m trying to do songs where I can get a publishing check, a real publishing check. As long as people keep buying the repetitive songs, they’re gonna keep making them. That’s why a lot of people who used to listen to juke music don’t listen to it anymore. You hear a lot of people saying, “Oh I’m too old for that.” And you ask them why, and they say “It’s the same stuff from five years ago.” “Watch My Feet” broke barriers. There’s people who didn’t listen to juke music but do now because of that song.

DEMENCHA: After talking to you and DJ Shad (a fellow Violator Juke Squad DJ based out of Kansas City), it sounds as though the major labels are ready to push the juke sound this year. Who’s to say the majors aren’t looking at juke as a fad to capitalize on for the time being?

DJ Slugo: The big labels jump on what’s happening. You can’t knock them for that. That’s why people say to “stay current.” If majors find someone who has a buzz, they’ll fuck with them and put some money in (their) pocket. If someone wants a major label to look at them, (I’d say) step your game up. Technology has made it so that you don’t have to go to the big studios anymore. You can go to a big studio and cut your vocals and bring them back to your studio.

DEMENCHA: Some say that African-Americans are less convincible to uptempo music. Do you agree with that? And if so, how has house music and juke been so prominent in black neighborhoods specific to Chicago for so long?

DJ Slugo: It’s hood music. That’s where the repetitiveness came from. We would hear people saying things in the neighborhood and we would just take it, repeat it, and put a track behind it. So if anybody wants to give credit to that genre of music, give it to the hood.

DEMENCHA: Many club owners in Kansas City will actually host house music to keep out their undesired crowd. What’s it like in Chicago?

DJ Slugo: I sympathize with club owners who don’t want juke music in their club. In Chicago, they say that when that music comes on, people tend to get rowdy. But it’s really not rowdy, it’s just that the women get to dancing a certain way and the men get aroused and it turns into some kind of freak-fest. But the average club that I know of that isn’t playing juke music isn’t really popping off. You’ve got to understand, you’re charging me twenty at the door. You’re overcharging me for these watered-down ass drinks and you can’t play at least 30 minutes of the music that I love? We’ve been poppin’ bottles all night, we’re ready for the girls to get freaky and if this is the type of music that makes the girls get freaky, well play that shit! Club owners don’t want their clubs tore up. And I’m with them a hundred percent. If you know that this type of music brings certain types of activity then prepare for the activity. Have fuckin’ security, or have a place in the club where you say, “You can only juke over there.” You can’t stop a music that has the streets. That’s one thing that people don’t understand. When they try to ban stuff, that’s fine with me because then people will want to know why they’re banning this music. That’s why Luke was so big. Ban it! That way we can get on all the CDs and DVDs and talk all the shit we want to. Ya’ll are banning us because we come in and tear the fuckin’ club up. That’s what they did with crunk music. After a while Lil Jon kept banging their heads with it so they couldn’t get around it.

DEMENCHA: I understand you have a reputation for calling out other DJs in diss tracks. The original question I had for you was regarding the rivalry between the ghetto-tech people in Detroit and the ghetto house DJs in Chicago. But the last time we talked, you said that that stuff had been settled.

DJ Slugo: It was basically an ego thing going on with Chicago and Detroit. There was a lot of backdoor stuff being said. Deeon has warned me about this stuff numerous times and he’s (advised me) not to voice my opinion publicly about this issue. Deeon’s one of my closest buddies. He says to just leave that shit alone. But I’m a hot head. So I would be in the studio and be pissed about something and make a track about it and throw it up on myspace. Deeon was telling me the other day that I’m too old for that shit. He said if you concentrated on your music as much as you concentrated on arguing with other motherfuckers you’d have a hundred and one more hits. I expressed my opinion, and the guys in Detroit expressed their opinion. There was a whole hoopla over who’s gonna do what to each other, but at the end of the day it was a bunch of grown men acting like kids. And our music isn’t prospering because we can’t get our shit together. It was never really a beef. It was just a few people who had some things to get off their chest and it was what it was.

DEMENCHA: Why did Daft Punk give you a shout out on their album, Homework?

DJ Slugo: Daft Punk came to the Dance Mania office in Chicago and talked to Barney. He called me and Deeon down there and he was like, “These guys want to meet you guys. They want to go sit down and eat.” We had no idea who they were. We just thought that they were some guys from overseas that admired our music. They were telling us how the music inspired them and how they loved Chicago music and they bought a gang of records. They bought one of every fuckin’ Dance Mania record that was out at the time and took them back home. We were out eating and I remember Thomas doing the majority of the talking. And he said that he enjoyed the inspiration and they were telling us that we were big over there where they were at. He kept calling me “Slew-go” at the table. These guys went back home overseas, and they put this album out called “Teachers.” And on the album they’re just playing this track, a techno type track but it’s hard. It’s cold. We never knew that they mentioned our names in the track. They mentioned a lot of DJs from Chicago in there. And even on the record, they said our names wrong. The song is actually a shout out to DJs. That’s why they called it “Teachers.” I was fucked up off it. We didn’t know that these guys were like Michael Jacksons overseas. I knew it was really big when one of my guys from Gramophone called. Still to this day people are like, “How did ya’ll get that shout out on that record?” We didn’t get them to do that shit; they did that shit on their own. I love them because they respected us for what we’ve done. When they came to Chicago they saw what we were making our tracks on and they were trippin’ like, “Are you serious? Ya’ll are making those records on this stuff?” We ain’t got those big ass studios and all that shit.

DEMENCHA: Talk about the history of Dance Mania and the plans to start it back up this year.

DJ Slugo: Dance Mania was something I came into in the middle of the game. And I got that blessing from Deeon. I was actually making a lot of tracks at the time. I was one of the guys in the neighborhood banging out tracks in the hood. Deeon was putting out records at the time and we had no idea about that shit. I finally linked up with Deeon and he’s like, “I’m gonna take you to meet Ray.” I was fucked up in the head when I got down there because I saw all these different guys who I had looked up to and their records on the shelves down there. Just tons of records. Ray had records everywhere. I’m like “This is Dance Mania?” Damn. Right on the West Side of Chicago. Deeon introduced me to Ray and he told him that I made good records and Ray didn’t even question it. He said, “Bring that DAT, and figure out what you want to put on first and we’ll take it from there.” I started putting shit out and motherfuckers started hearing me on Dance Mania and it was a barrage of records from that point on. Ray Barney and Dance Mania single-handedly put ghetto house on the map. Anybody that wants to say that they’re doing juke or whatever, they can never forget Ray Barney. Ray Barney is the reason any of us were eating and still to this day. Nobody wanted to take chances with us. Ray was the only one that took a chance with a bunch of street cats. He was the only person willing to take money out of his pocket and bet it on these young cats in the hood. Ray Barney is the reason for ghetto house and juke music.

DEMENCHA: Talk about your plans to start Dance Mania back up again soon.

DJ Slugo: Me and Deeon sat down and talked about it. I talked to Ray myself and asked Ray if he would sign my records back over to me because he was saying that he was never going to do shit else with them. He said he was done. And I was shocked and a little hurt that Ray was done. Like, “Damn…no more albums, no more records.” Dance Mania is folding? This is the heart of the Chi on the ghetto house side. And he was through with it. And we waited a while, and eventually he gave me the records back. Then this digital download shit started happening. I told Deeon, if we want to restart Dance Mania we should have the common courtesy of asking Ray for his blessing. We asked Ray if he would mind. We didn’t want to step on his toes because he was somebody who helped us. He said he didn’t care, so me and Deeon formed a company and said, “Let’s get it crackin.” There was a lot of stuff to iron out with a new company, but we’re ready now. It was a blessing that we didn’t rush it back because in the process we ended up bringing back two sub-labels that were under Dance Mania which were Freak Mode and Subterranean Playhouse. So we’re gonna run Dance Mania together, Deeon’s going to run Freak Mode and I’m going to run Subterranean Playhouse. We’re going to hit them with a barrage of downloads and vinyl. We got the “Dance Mania Classics” coming back on vinyl, as well as the newer stuff.

DEMENCHA: Tell us about the Violator Juke Squad DJs.

DJ Slugo: We linked with the Violators in New York. In a while we’ll be up in their main page. They gave us their blessing. They told me to get my team together and make it happen. We’ve been moving slow for a minute but there’s a lot of things we got coming up this year. All I can say is “Watch me do me.” Tell them me and Deeon are stronger than ever right now.

Tweet This Post