“A Job in the Business”

Vick Lavender has never taken the easy road. Born in Louisiana, and raised on Chicago's west side, he came up on dub tapes, Italo, and New Wave records before deep house had a name. DJ, producer, label owner & co-owner of Bridgeport Records, every step has been deliberate and every move a natural progression. He has never been in a rush. He has never been satisfied either.

Deep house is not easily understood. Neither is an artist who has spent thirty years crafting music that draws from jazz fusion, world music and R&B, music that calls to ancestral spirit and permeates the soul. A prolific producer with releases on West End Records, Sacred Rhythm Music, Local Talk, Ocha and his own Sophisticado Recordings, championed by the likes of Glenn Underground, Anthony Nicholson, Boo Williams and Ron Trent, while remaining largely unbothered by the spotlight. Today he’s still putting out some of the most beautiful, unhurried music in the game. All of it on vinyl.

In this conversation with host Lori Branch, recorded inside Bridgeport Records, Vick talks about the city, people and records that shaped him, the culture of Chicago's segregated club scene, what it means to always have a job inside the business and where he's going next.

Karen Gordon 'aka Dajae' grew up in West Englewood on Chicago's South Side. Music was in the house. Her father, Reginald Gordon, was a doo-wop singer who performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. She had the family gift and her mother nurtured it, but Karen's path to it was long and unsteady. She spent years practicing alone, singing background for Jive Records, earning a gold album on a Will Smith record, and auditioning for groups that turned her away. By the time she was approaching thirty, she was ready to quit.

In 1992, a last-minute introduction to producer Cajmere led to "Brighter Days”, the house music staple, a genre she hadn't sought out, but the she would define. The song reached number two on the Billboard dance charts and never stopped being played. And her career blossomed.

More than thirty years later, Dajae's voice remains one of the most recognized in house music, and Karen Gordon is largely unknown outside of it. In this conversation recorded at Bridgeport Records, with host Lori Branch, Karen shares about her family's musical lineage, her passion for singing, the high’s & low’s of her career, spirituality, what it means to be a woman vocalist in a scene that often left its female voices uncredited, and her life today on the South Side, caring for her mother.

Toni Shelton, known throughout Chicago as Disco Tony, has been throwing parties since 1979. As the city's first solo female house music promoter, she's built a legacy that spans over four decades: the flyers with her face on them, the DJ battles, the iconic all-white parties that have brought Chicago's South Side community together for twenty years running.

But behind the magnetic presence and the bright red lipstick is a story that starts much harder. Toni lost her mother at seven years old. By seventeen, her grandmother was gone too, leaving her to navigate the world on her own terms. She finished high school. She went to college. She picked up a camera at nine and never put it down. And somehow, in the midst of finding her footing, she created a place where everybody else could feel at home.

In this conversation around host Lori Branch's kitchen table, Toni opens up about grief, resilience, and what it really means to be a promoter. Not just booking venues and printing flyers, but mothering a community before she ever had children of her own. Because when you grow up with nowhere to go, you learn how to build the place yourself.

Some of the best history gets told between old friends. Before there were house music producers, there were kids in basements with cheap turntables and cheaper cassette decks, staying up all night trying to get the pause button just right. Craig Loftis was one of those kids.

Craig Loftis, aka Grand High Priest, will tell you he doesn't run around waving flags about being one of Chicago's first house music producers. But the receipts are there. A track made in 1982. A night at Mendel with Frankie Knuckles that made twenty thousand dollars. Years at DJ International where the entire Chicago house music canon was being built in real time. And Mary Mary, a track that lived on the gay scene for six years before the straight market ever heard it. This is that story.

Produced by Lori Branch and Hannah Viti. Funded by a grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Events. Music provided by Craig Loftis, Boo Williams, Vick Lavender, and Steve Ty Maestro.

Without Robert Williams, there may be no house music, or at least not as we know it today. As the founder and owner of the legendary Warehouse club, the space where Frankie Knuckles first DJ'd and where a genre was born, Robert is one of the most important figures in the culture's history. And yet his full story, from foster care in Chicago to the backrooms of New York's gay nightlife scene, then back to Chicago becoming politically connected enough to keep his club untouched, is rarely told in its entirety. Host Lori Branch sits down with the man affectionately known as The Senior for a wide ranging, unfiltered conversation about the real history of the Warehouse, the Music Box, Ron Hardy, and why he believes the genre's gay roots have never been told correctly.

In this first episode of House Music Chicago Testimony, host Lori Branch tells her own story — from growing up on Chicago's South Side to becoming one of the first female DJs on the emerging house music scene in the early 1980s. She shares what it felt like to stand on stage, heart pounding through her shirt, at her first DJ battle. And she introduces the community of friends, mentors, and pioneers you'll hear throughout this season. This is where the anthology begins.

Before we even called it house music, these people were living it. In Season 1 of House Music Chicago Testimony, host Lori Branch sits down with five legends who were there at the very beginning. Robert Williams, the man who opened the Warehouse and set everything in motion. Craig Loftis, the producer and DJ who was in the booth with Frankie Knuckles and helped shape the sound from the ground up. Toni Shelton, known as Disco Tony, who was sneaking into the Warehouse at 16 and throwing her own parties not long after. Dajae, the voice behind Brighter Days, who almost gave up on singing right before everything changed. And Vick Lavender, deep house artist and co-owner of Bridgeport Records, who has never stopped building something new inside the culture he loves.

Every story about Chicago house music starts somewhere different. A record, a club, a night that changed everything. Host Lori Branch, a South Side-born DJ and historian who was there at the beginning, invites you into a series of intimate conversations with the pioneers who built the genre. House Music Chicago Testimony is a living archive of sound, community, and the lives behind the music, preserved while we still have the chance. Season One features Robert Williams, Craig Loftis, Toni Shelton, Dajae, and Vic Lavender. Subscribe now. New episodes drop Monday, March 30th.