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Music

R.I.P. Frankie Knuckles, Pioneering House DJ

The self-proclaimed "godfather of house music" was a vital force behind the early guidance and development of an alternative dance scene at the periphery of American music culture.

Thanks to the iconic movie trilogy of the same name, the word "godfather" implies guidance and leadership of underground criminal organizations. In the case of Frankie Knuckles, only part of that definition is true. The self-proclaimed "godfather of house music" was a vital force behind the early guidance and development of an alternative dance scene at the periphery of American music culture. Due in no small part to his lifelong dedication to the form, house music has become a mainstay on dancefloors around the globe. Knuckles died in his home on Monday afternoon from unspecified causes that may have been related to his lengthy battle with Type II diabetes. The Chicago Tribune reports that Knuckles' death is confirmed by business partner Frederick Dunson.

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Knuckles, born Francis Nicholls in the Bronx in 1955, began his career while studying textile design at FIT. In the early 1970s, he took up a residency at the Continental Baths on the Upper West Side with a childhood friend, the also-legendary DJ and producer Larry Levan. Around the time Levan helped define the scene of the historic downtown club Paradise Garage, Knuckles moved to Chicago and began working at a club called the Warehouse (the place from which house music allegedly gets its name). Knuckles and his contemporaries were experimenting with disco when the genre was on its last legs of mainstream acceptance—In 1979, a radio DJ staged a public destruction of disco records at a Chicago White Sox game at Comiskey Park. While the event signaled the end of the record industry's affair with the genre, Knuckles found new ways to push the boundaries of disco through his pioneering of re-edits, where he would take elements of his favorite records and cut them up into dancefloor-friendly extended tracks. When thrown into the mix of soul, funk, and rare imported releases that gave his DJ sets at Warehouse their unique sound, Knuckles' production helped to define a new form of dance music that predated the modern club style.

Through the combination of a drum machine bought from a young Detroit techno producer named Derrick May, a creative partnership with Chicago artist Jamie Principle, and the opening of his own club Power Plant, Knuckles' career had entered full swing by the early 1980s. By the end of the decade, Knuckles was touring Europe as the style he helped form went from being a protean subculture to a fully formed genre of electronic music with its own clubs, record labels, and audiences. In addition to producing hundreds of classic tracks and DJing at now-famous clubs and parties around the world, Knuckles remixed tracks for major-label artists like Michael Jackson, Pet Shop Boys, and Toni Braxton, to name only a few. He won the first Grammy ever awarded to a remixer, has a street named after him in Chicago, and, even at age 59, remained active, regularly headlining at major music festivals worldwide.

It's impossible to deny Knuckles' impact on electronic music as a whole. When I was first learning about house music, names like Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan became historical figures to me. Despite downplaying the political nature of the scene where he got his start, it was implicit that what Knuckles helped build was a vital space for racial, sexual, and economic minorities amid the intolerance of mainstream club scenes in American cities. It's been pointed out before, but as electronic music becomes increasingly globalized and mainstream, it'll be more important than ever to center and celebrate the culture's diverse roots among marginalized groups. Knuckles' enduring career is a testament to this—by the time I was old enough to go see him DJ at clubs in Chicago, he was already in his 50s, and the crowds were unlike anything I've seen at any shows I've been to since: represented there were a wide span of ages, races, and sexualities, all enjoying a sound so potent that it transcended generations and gave everybody something different to dance for.

Gabriel Herrera is a writer living in New York. He's on Twitter - @gabrielherrera