Originally from Brooklyn New York, Lisa has been in love with house music since the days when house was disco. In the midst of all the technical mumbo-jumbo in today’s digital age, she brings a wealth old school knowledge to the forefront. Like many, Lisa loves to write about what she’s passionate about, and we’re thrilled she’s inspired by House Music! Having written articles in college and for The Examiner, iLHM is proud to have her onboard as a Editor where her writings abouts house music culture can take full stage.

Before you can begin to understand what soulful house music is you need to know some of the history and origin of house music in general.  There have been a lot of discrepancies over what is true house music and what is not, so my goal in this article is to shed some knowledge on what is real house and soulful house music. So let's start from the beginning.

House
House music is like the matriarch of electronic dance music, emerging on the scene in the early 80's bringing the residue of the disco aesthetics. House was initially popularized in discotheques catering to mostly the gay communities of the African and Latin Americans in Chicago, then in other locations such as New York City, New Jersey, Toronto, Montreal, London, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami. It then reached and began to influence popular music in Europe, with chart hits such as
House Master Boyz, “House Nation” and Coldcut “Doctorin' The House” (1988).
During the late 70's after disco was on the decline, mainstream American dislike for disco music grew intense. For example, there was a mass burning of disco records during a baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers known as the Disco Demolition Riot. There intentions were to eradicate the disco scene to be replaced by Rock music. The ironic thing about this protest is that both towns later down the line became dance music capitals. Who would have thought?
Once this riot took place most record labels shunned this particular type of music, but thank god for the loyal troopers out there who still loved to go dancing in the clubs on the weekends because some dj's tried to plug the gap by importing Italian disco and the use of singles by independent labels such as Prelude and West End Records. Chicago's longtime disco mixers Ron Hardy, Frankie Knuckles (developed a distinct sound mainly due to the electronic drum machines of the day; Roland TR-808, TR-909 and later the TB 303 for Acid House)., Larry Heard (aka Mr. Fingers & Fingers Inc.), Chip E, Tyree Cooper, DJ Leonard “Remix” Roy and many more took things to another level by incorporating soul tracks from the 70's with the use of synthesizers and sequencers; house music emerged out of the dust as well as house music producers. They began to open up clubs such as the Muzic Box and the Warehouse which coined the name "house music".

House music and disco are closely related in spirit and execution; you will often find the same piano runs, four-to-the-floor beats and very often samples of disco divas such as, Donna Summer
or Gloria Gaynor. Early house singles were often times more reminiscent of '70s minimalism than disco with just incredibly raw rhythm tracks with little melody or song structure; nicknamed jacking tracks (in tribute to an accompanying dance), the music was optimized for mixing and a dj's own interpretation. One of the major characteristics that separated disco from house was technology. You see, disco artists had access to professional studios, major record labels and sometimes entire orchestras. Unfortunately, house music artist lacked monetary resources that would afford them musicians and the like, so they took their lemons and made lemonade and began to utilize sampler technology, drum machines, synthesized baselines, sequencers and off-beat hi-hat cymbals which was least expensive. While house displayed several characteristics similar to disco music, it was more electronic and minimalistic, and the structured music focus around a repetitive rhythm was more important than the song itself. Its percussion-led rhythmic beats are firmly driven by its African roots; this music is best appreciated by people who love to dance.
The house scene in the early 80's and '90s started to break off and separate to focus on the more soulful aspects house. The most popular styles of house that were formed were mainly New York house (Garagemusic), Chicago house (Acid house) and Europe house (House-Pop scene). The European house-pop, "discreet music" started by Brian Eno was an ambient-house movement with beats and moods indebted to early pioneers of house like Larry Heard. By the late 90's, electronic dance music fragmented into dozens of styles based around house, techno and breakbeat.