Jammin’ Gerald – Factory Style (1994)

During the early 90’s, as roster artists on Dance Mania began to gain more and more local attention, a club called The Factory became a youth hotspot for the latest and greatest dance and electronic slammers to get played. In ’85, Jammin’ Gerald (Henderson) began his DJ residency there. After noticing that house flavorings in particular went over well with the crowds, he began to fiddle with his own tracks. Dance Mania founder and A&R person Willie J. Barney caught wind of his tunes and asked for a handful to release on his label. The result is this EP, containing a rework of Gerald’s most popular club hit “Get The Ho”, but the main attraction is, “Mutha Fuckin' Party Hype”, which is one of my favorite ghetto house songs. All these tracks are solid though. Cop this.

Side note: whoever ripped this copy is a poophead. I think there's a better rip on what that I'll try to grab eventually.

posse up

DJ Funk – Booty House Anthems (1999)

Seminal release from the Godfather of ghetto house (Chunk Chambers). If you’re not familiar with the genre, it’s marked by stripped-down house sounds with sexual vocals, usually samples but also sometimes supplied by the DJ’s themselves (or even more rarely by MC’s).  Tracks are fast and short, aimed towards the hyper & lusty clubby crowds of Chicago and Detroit, the former being Funk’s place of residence. In the early 90’s, while other labels were moving away from the stripped-down sound of house, Dance Mania was the one to keep it going, and Funk was at the forefront. Early on he was a mixtape guy but had a couple very successful hits in the clubs, and in 1999 released this comp; thirty cuts of the movin’-est booty-shakin’ house music that had existed up that point.

Dance Mania was a pretty big label that went through a lot of stylistic changes. A great thing about it is that there isn’t really a wrong place to start, as long as you know what era you’re dealing with. This comp is nice if you’re new to ghetto house, but so are a number of other releases. In the future I’m going to try to upload as much Dance Mania stuff as I can (although this comp wasn’t actually released on DM).

work it