Growing up on the musically rich west side of the Windy City, DJ Funk was exposed to Chicago, New York and Detroit dance music at an early age. Building on these influences, he got his start as a teenage DJ playing house parties, school dances and neighborhood clubs, selling mixtapes with his Do or Die crew. Funk was among the first to push rap music into Chicago’s club scene; mixing house, techno and hip-hop, he pioneered what became known as ghetto house, or booty house, the motherless child of a genre that is decidedly rude and uncompromising. Anthem upon anthem speckles his résumé, often released on his own label Dance Mania Records. Funk’s remix sheet reads like the who’s who of dance music: Basement Jaxx, Justice, DJ Sneak, Fast Eddie and many more.
