Deep House Music

Since its inception, house music has evolved into countless different formats. Many of these house variants are indistinguishable from the others to the untrained ear, and the labels given to them are in many cases not much of a help. One great example is the term "deep house," which would imply a particular kind of sound that is different from traditional house.

What Is Deep House Music?

In reality, deep house is actually the same thing as classic house. In other words, it's just regular old house music--with emphasis on the word "old." Deep house actually gets its name from the 1987 LP "Deep House" by DJ Frankie Knuckles, one of the originators of house music.

Frankie Knuckles was originally from New York, but he moved to Chicago in the late 1970s and began spinning records to a predominantly Black, gay audience. Since (as Knuckles himself has said) there weren't any dance records coming out at the time, he was forced to mix and alter existing records so that they would keep people's feet moving on the dance floor.

The result of Knuckles' fiddling was a new type of dance music that would eventually be called "house." The name "house" came from the club that Knuckles spun at--Chicago's legendary Warehouse. Over the years, "deep house," "classic house" or "Chicago house" have become the accepted terms for the type of music Knuckles was spinning in the 1980s.