Cindy Flores
Topic: House Music
Form of organization: Spatial
Purpose Statement: By the end of my speech, the audience will learn about the history of house music. Central Idea: House music comes from within the soul.
Intro: “I am, you see, I am the creator. And this is my House. And in my House there is only
House music. But I am not so selfish, because once you've entered my House, it then becomes our House, and our House music.” Those are the lyrics to a song called “In the beginning by
Chuck Roberts, which I got by Ross Haber in dragoneer.com. The lyrics let us know that house music is universal, that anyone can groove to it no matter the language. A song can be in
Spanish, german or French and it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand it, because you will no doubt enjoy the sound.
Preview Statement: Today, I will discuss the history of house music. First, we will go over the start of the genre in Chicago, we’ll move on over to the continuation of the genre in the UK and finally, I will clarify what happened to house music as of today.
1. House music took its name from Chicago by Frankie Knuckles.
A. Taking this into consideration, during the mid-70’s, Chicago was still America’s nd 2 largest city.
B. It was the time where hatred and discrimination was taking place. However,
Robert Williams, a promoter whose parties brought together youths of all races had a club named “The Warehouse” which was originally for just gay black men soon set the stage for house music by Frankie Knuckles. The club had so much popularity, it no longer was just gay black men, it brought all ethnicities, ages and genders together.
i.
From Frankie Knuckles biography on allmusic.com, published by John
Bush, he was an American producer, DJ and remixer from New York. He began to DJ in New York and soon moved to Chicago when he was 22 years old and where he gathered a crowd for 5 years.
a. DJed there and his career started in the same warehouse; he reinvented the genre and transformed it to Chicago house.
b. “House music is disco’s revenge” says Frankie, according to the
Chicago Tribune, published April 1, 2014 by Whet Moser, just a few days after Knuckles passed away.

ii.

C.

D.

E.
F.

Disco burned itself out like everything eventually does. The sound was underground but the Chicago house DJ, who was a low-budget citizen living within a foggy musical economy brought it back.
“Punk out” was a big scene and that’s why it was so hard to come out with something new but Knuckles created this and DJ’s followed under his footsteps.
i.
He began playing fresh edits from disco tunes that were a few years old and whenever he’d play them, the crowd would go insane.
a. “My fondest memory is the mixed crowd. Racially, ethnically, sexually. That was the best thing.” Knuckles confirms, from newspaper I cited earlier from Chicago Politics and City Life.
The warehouse’s final year was the wildest. There were teenagers more then adults. Parents would come out to look for their children, it was overcrowded and there was stick-ups being thrown around. It was clearly no longer safe.
Continuing his career, in November 1982, knuckles opens his own club, The
Power Plant to emphasize his name in the music industry.
Disco started house music and 2 years later after Knuckles opened up his own club, electronic dance music by Chicago teenagers exploded all over the world.

Transition: House music began in Chicago, however, the spread of the genre increased and it was especially high in Europe. United Kingdom’s chart topper was taken over by Chicago’s house scene. Let’s travel across the world to the UK, where the Second Summer of Love: the summer of 1988 and 1989.
2. The Second Summer of Love was the revival of house music and when the word “rave” broke out. I acknowledged that from Akhil Kalepu, published April 9, 2015 on djtechtools.com. A. The word “rave” if you all may not know is defined by the Merriam-Webster
Dictionary as “a party that lasts all night where people