Alex Dias

Stones Throw Records challenges perceptions, demonstrating how a scrappy indie can create a deep cultural impact. Explore these essentials.

While house and hip hop were born from similar threads and hold their roots in Black culture, how they were historically expressed couldn't be more different. House music became a refuge for the Black and brown LGBTQ community and created a safe space where sexual freedom, hedonism, and radical...

Throughout Dj Sneak's nearly three-decade career, he's influenced the sound of countless producers. In 1997 he released "Sneak's A Freak," one of the earliest iterations of filtered disco house. The groundbreaking sound would go on to dominate dancefloors throughout the late 90s. Even though...

The track contains all the hallmarks of classic Prodigy: a blistering synth hook, heart-stopping guitars, and the smack of the Roland TR-707.

Often credited as the first deep house cut, “Mystery of Love” is a blueprint for the genre. Its pattern continues to captivate dancefloors.

Frankie Knuckles is considered the godfather of house music. His seminal DJ sets at Chicago’s Warehouse gave birth to house music culture. And he was shining example of black and LGBTQ excellence. Tracks like “Your Love,” and “The Whistle Song” still reverberate from the speakers of clubs and...

Overnight success takes about ten years. By that measure, your favorite DJ or producer was grinding long before you even knew they existed. And they probably tried countless times to find their groove. Dance music is a vast web of genres and subgenres. Its diversity makes it easy for artists to...

The dance music community today mourned the loss of two of its pioneers. Chicago house legend Paul Johnson passed away this morning at age 50 from complications related to COVID-19. And First Lady of Detroit K-Hand, aka Kelli Hand, passed away yesterday at age 56, the cause of death was unknown...

“Everybody Needs A 303" marked the arrival of Fatboy Slim. The track would propel him to become one of the world’s first superstar DJs.

Starkly beautiful, “Can You Feel It” is an iconic piece of 20th-century dance music. Mr. Fingers created it solely on the JUNO-60 and TR-909.

Mr. Oizo’s “Flat Beat” was an infectious song written for a Levi's® ad starring an orange puppet named Flat Eric. At its heart was the TR-606.

Detroit’s enigmatic duo Drexciya submerged themselves in Afrofuturist myth. "Rublicks Cube" is a transcendent TR-606 classic.