The Mix 082: DJ Thadz & DJ Slugo

Between them, Thomas Kendricks, AKA DJ Slugo and Thaddeus Anderson, AKA DJ Thadz, represent two generations of undeniable Chicago talent. Musically speaking, their common ground is the raw, stripped-down sensibilities of ghetto house, the movement that changed both of their lives. Fittingly, both men released their first records through the storied Dance Mania Records, a label that helped reshape the sound of dance music in Chi-Town several times over. Decades on, they’re still celebrating its legacy, via their contributions to the recent ‘Dance Mania Legends’ vinyl compilation and accompanying digital EPs released through their Subterranean Playhouse and Clownhouse Muzik imprints, respectively.

A straight-A student who spent his evenings in the streets on the South Side of the Windy City, Slugo lived through the disco era and the birth of hip hop and house music, while finding his footing as a DJ, producer and later on, label owner. In the early 1990s, he connected with several key Chicago music legends, the late DJ Deeon, the late Paul Johnson, and Dance Mania Records boss Ray Barney, who helped him turn the process of producing and releasing records into a viable pathway. 

From his first Dance Mania release, ‘Livin' That Ghetto Life’ (1995), Slugo’s hard-edged machine funk and smutty chants resonated with party people at home, and later abroad, turning tracks like ‘Wouldn’t You Like To Be A Hoe Too’ and ‘Where The Rats’ into cult classics. In the 2000s, he caught a second wind via his Chicago Juke DVD series. Since then, he’s settled into his status as one of the godfathers and global ambassadors of ghetto house, while remaining prolific as a recording artist and remixer. 

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Before he started DJing, Thadz got a solid grounding in music theory while playing the trombone and piano during his childhood. As a teenager, he found his interests turning more towards hip hop, R&B and later on, techno and house. When he heard DJ Deeon, Funk, Milton and Slugo’s undeniable 12” singles and coloured cassette mixtapes, his world shifted. Ghetto house became his gospel. 

Thadz learned his fundamentals as a DJ by sneaking into his older brother’s room and practicing with his records, mixer and turntables, before scoring work DJing at the infamous Markham Roller Rink. After entering the production circle through Dance Mania in 1997 with his debut EP, ‘Kandi Machine’, Thadz established Clownhouse Muzik. One of his label’s first crucial releases was ‘Da Juke Project’, a mix CD masterminded by the late great DJ Rashad, featuring Thadz and DJ Clent. Not long after, he gave DJ Spinn a similar opportunity. Since then, he’s played a crucial, supporting role in Chicago’s ghetto house, juke and footwork scenes.

For his ‘Dance Mania Legends’ digital release, Slugo offers up two exemplary, low-slung ghetto house tracks ‘How We Do’ and ‘Last of The Year (Whip That)’. Alongside Slugo’s efforts, Thadz offers up sturdy club bangers ‘Let Me Squeeze 'Em’ and ‘Freak Hoe’. In the tradition of the ‘90s 12” single, he also crams in a radio edit and a club dub radio edit of ‘Freak Hoe’. 

To celebrate these digital releases and the enduring legacy of Dance Mania and the ghetto house movement, we asked DJ Slugo and DJ Thadz to record the 82nd edition of The Mix. They approached it as a game of two halves, taking turns to walk us through their undeniable dancefloor visions. Read our Q&A with them below.

First of all, thank you for recording such a fun two-part mix for us.

DJ Thadz: Thank you for having us.

Seeing as you’re both from Chicago, I wanted to start things off by asking what Chaka Khan means to you.

DJ Slugo: For me, Chaka Khan is Chicago music history and the perfect definition of longevity. When I was growing up, my mamma, my aunts and my granny were always playing her music. I don’t know who I heard the most, The Isley Brothers or Chaka Khan.

DJ Thadz: Definitely, big facts. 

What did you have in mind when you were preparing your halves of this mix for us?

DJ Slugo: My vision for the mix was to give those that know and don’t know a taste of what the term ghetto house music sounds like. A lot of people hear the term but are not familiar with the sound, or are familiar with the sound but it's titled as something else. I just wanted to set the record 100% straight with my mix on your platform. 

DJ Thadz: You know what man? My goal was to bring the true, deep elements of ghetto house, juke and footwork in Chicago. I’m just speaking for myself, but some of the stuff you hear out there doesn't have that authentic ghetto gutter sound. I wanted to bring the raw Chicago bass feel from back in the day. I like the freaky shit. I like the ghetto house shit. I like the footwork shit. I like the juke shit. I just want people to hear it and get a certain feeling, and be like, “Ooouuu!”

How long have you two been friends for?

DJ Thadz: Man, I’ve known Slugo for over 20 years easily. There’s this story I still tell to this day. When we first met, I was in the car with Slugo, and we went to the projects. I’m from the suburbs in Chicago, so I was so scared. Anyway, we pull up in the projects. Slugo was like, “I gotta run in here for a minute.” He left me in the car for an hour by myself. The thing is, no one said anything to me. No one even approached the car. They must have known it was Slugo’s car.

Why do you think you clicked?

DJ Slugo: I get on with musically minded people. I don’t really have anything else to talk about. Personal life-wise, I’ve been around him so long that our wives know each other, but that came over time. Our instant link was music. If people aren’t musically inclined, there’s really nothing for us to talk about. We’ll never be on the same page. 

DJ Thadz: Exactly.

DJ Slugo: People who do music as a hobby, I don’t really resonate with them, because I do music as a lifestyle. If you spend your time at a 9-5 job, by the time you get home, I’ve done 20 tracks. You’re coming into the studio saying, ‘Let’s get to work,’ but bro, the work is over. I get up every day, do my workout, and get started programming drums. I do music for real. If I don’t, I ain’t going to survive. I turned it into a business.

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How young were you guys when you started paying attention to DJs?

DJ Slugo: I would have been 10 or 11. I had a cousin in the area, DJ Geno. I was watching him. Where I grew up, there were a lot of people. You didn’t even really have to go outside to get popular, because there were thousands of people living on one street. 

DJ Thadz: I would have been about 17. My entry point into house music was in my early twenties. When I started DJing, I was playing techno. I wasn’t in tune with ghetto house, or even house. What happened was this: I was playing at a party and they weren’t really feeling the techno, so this guy gave me a cassette. It was a DJ Deeon tape. That was my first introduction to ghetto house. I was like “Damn, this sounds good.” From there, I evolved into listening to ghetto house, and later on, normal house music like Cajmere. I went backwards. 

DJ Slugo: I went the other way. I was introduced to house music before it was called house music. I come from the disco era, and I watched Lil Louis and Frankie Knuckles flip disco into house. I was there. I got a chance to see Jamie Principle. These people were associates of mine. I was able to pick up the phone and call them. I met Steve “Silk” Hurley and Adonis, and people like that, because my cousin was so deep into the sound. I was able to go to Hot Wax, Hot Jams, and all of those classic [Chicago] record stores. 

What did it mean to you when the beat tracks like Virgo’s ‘Go Wild Rythm Trax’ LP and Farley Funkin Keith, AKA Farley "Jackmaster" Funk’s ‘Funkin With The Drums’ EP started turning up?

DJ Slugo: That’s what got me wanting to do production. Hearing those records made me know I could do it too if I just learned how to program drums. 

In the late 1970s/early 1980s, there was a run of early New York hip hop singles with really flamboyant disco sensibilities, then Run-DMC turned up and pared it back. Do you think something similar happened when the ghetto house generation arrived?

DJ Slugo: Yes. I did my first record at Paul Johnson’s house; may he rest in peace. When I did the record, Paul didn’t like ghetto house. He said, I don’t like all that cursing and disrespectful language. These were his direct words to me: “You motherfuckers are the bastard children of house.” I said, “What?” and referenced a few of his records like, “That ain’t ghetto house?” If you told Paul one of his records was ghetto house, he’d have a fucking fit.

DJ Thadz: I got started at Paul’s house as well. When I wanted to start producing, my sister’s husband bought me my first drum machine, a Boss DR-5. I made my first record with that, ‘Kandi Machine,’ and Paul [Johnson] and Stacey [Kidd] helped me with it. When I listen to it now, I was trying to do ghetto house, but it was closer to techno.

DJ Slugo: Paul was the reason I became an equipment junkie. So you can understand me better, I was a schoolboy by day, and a thug at night when my mamma was at work. I had the best of both worlds. I was a bookworm, but I had uncles who were street gangsters. They always said, if you get good grades, your mamma won’t fuck with you. So I was a straight-A student. I graduated top ten in my class. I was sharp.

When I was recording my first album, I did it at Paul’s studio, and it was on his time. There were so many people coming to Paul’s house that you had to get in where you fit in. At the beginning of Dance Mania, everybody was at Paul’s house because he had the mixing board, the Akai DR16, and all of those synths. The first time I walked into his house, I thought, I’m making my shit here. At the time, I just had a Roland R-70 drum machine and a Gemini 2-channel mixer with the four sample banks. I thought I was killing it, but when I got to Paul’s crib, man, I realised what I had were toys.

Ultimately, ghetto house reflected the reality of your lives in a way that earlier house music didn’t, right?

DJ Slugo: Here’s why ghetto house even came about. At the time, people like Steve "Silk" Hurley and Jamie Principle were making records like ‘Cold World’, but that didn’t fit with us anymore. N.W.A. had just come out, so we went from penny loafers and jeans to Timberlands and Starter jackets. We went from Kangols to Raiders baseball caps. We damn near looked like we were from New York up under those buildings. ‘Cold World’ and all that didn’t fit with what we had going on. House music was too happy for us, so we had to change the sound. 

Once I learned how to work the drum machine, I thought, “Why don’t I just put all the sayings from the neighbourhood on these records?” I figured that because they were familiar, they would resonate with everybody. Ghetto house was derogatory; house was happy. That was what changed everything. That’s why they didn’t rock with us. To this day, they still don’t fuck with us. They wanted to sing. I tell Byron Stingily all the time, you wanted to be Shalamar. They looked at El DeBarge and all of them, and they wanted to be the disco guys. They wanted to be pop stars.

Thadz, you released your first record through Dance Mania in 1997. By that point, what did all of this music mean to you?

DJ Thadz: It was an outlet and a lifestyle for me. Once I got exposed to ghetto house, I put techno down. I realised this was where I needed to be, because it gave me a feeling like no other. On top of that, I was able to rock parties with it, too. The further I got into it, the more I realised I love this ghetto shit. It just does something for me.

I’m younger than Slugo, so my era was more like Rashad, Spinn and that. We used to go to my mamma’s house and make tracks. That’s when I really got into it, around that time.

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What do you think are some common misconceptions about the ghetto house scene?

DJ Slugo: The problem I run into is people thinking we’re not business-minded. People think that because we make hood music, we don’t understand the business of music. Just yesterday, I had a back-and-forth with someone who sampled one of the records. They’ll tell me they’re trying to do me a favour and bring the music to the younger generation. 

Make this make sense to me: You sample me, change the name of the record, don’t credit me, or tell people where the sample is from, and you’re doing me a favour? We’re only having this conversation because you got caught. If you’re paying homage to me, why isn’t my name on your record? People think I’m dumb, but I’m far from that. I’m the last person you want to play with, especially on the business side of things.

Could you name a record from each of your discographies that you never get tired of playing in your DJ sets?

DJ Slugo: You know what, not too long ago, I made a record called ‘Ghetto Robots’. I’m fascinated by that record. I’ve been playing it in every set. I love a lot of my old shit, but there is something about that record. When I watch how it moves the crowd, I think to myself, yeah, this is gonna be around for a while.

DJ Thadz: For me, it’s a toss-up between ‘Let Me Squeeze ‘Em’ and ‘Freak Hoe’. 

DJ Slugo: I like universal records—the type where no matter where I go, they get the same reaction. I’ve got a whole folder full of records that never fail. ‘Let Me Squeeze ‘Em’ is in that folder.

DJ Thadz: Everywhere we go, it’s the same reaction. 

Thanks again for recording this mix and talking to us. Any final words? 

DJ Slugo: Even to this day, I’m still in amazement at some of the accomplishments I’ve made and am still making. You know who humbled me and made me realise people are people? Missy Elliott. I met her in LA when she had just got her Adidas deal. We couldn’t have had more than a 10 minute conversation. She was basically saying, you don’t have to treat me like a superstar. I’m a regular person. Let’s keep it that way. Don’t go getting starstruck. That’s a beautiful person.

You know who else is a beautiful person? Master P [from No Limit Records]. He just wants to see his people win. He’s such a good dude. Nobody can get me to say nothing bad about him. We had a seven-minute conversation that changed my whole outlook. Now I don’t go anywhere without product because of him. Yeah, I’ve always got something to sell.

The 'Dance Mania Legends' EPs are out now digitally, get them here and here

Martyn Pepperell is a freelance journalist, follow him on Instagram

Tracklists:
DJ Thadz / Part 1:
1. DJ Deeon - The Freaks 
2. Ahadadream - Piano Skank 
3. Dj Funk - Bounce Dat Ass 
4. DJ Thadz - She’s A Bussa 
5. DJ Thadz - Freak Hoe (Club Dub) 
6. DJ Thadz - Get Sexy (Ghetto ReWork) 
7. DJ Phats, Lil Mu, Gantman, DJ Thadz - We Outside
8. J Deeon - Dik N Ballz  
9. DJ Funk - Booty Clap 
10. DJ Thadz - Show Me The Hoes 
11. DJ Phats - Ghetto Shit  
12. DJ Thadz - Solitairez
13. DJ Chip, DJ Thadz - Bang Ski 
14. DJ Thadz - Who Got Them Bangs 
15. DJ Thadz, DJ Chip - Chicken Headz 
16. Big Dope P - Bigolbutt 
17. DJ Thadz - Make That Booty Move 
18. DJ Thadz - Let Me Squeeze 'Em 
19. Jammin Gerald - Pump On The Floor (DJ Thadz Rework)  
20. DJ Thadz - Bounce That Big Booty 
21. DJ Thadz - Break Ya Back 
22. DJ Thadz - Work Dat Shit 
23. Jammin Gerald & DJ Funk - Pump (Left To Right Mix)
24. DJ Deeon - 3 Fine Hoes 
25. DJ Thadz - Da Juke-a-Later (Rework) 
26. DJ Solo - Juke Me On The Flo 
27. DJ Chip - Hold Up  

DJ Slugo / Part 2:
01. Cajmere Featuring Dajae - Brighter Days (Remix) 
02. DJ Slugo - How We Do
03. DJ Slugo - Ghetto Robots
04. DJ Slugo - DJLB6 (Break Yo Back) 
05. DJ Slugo - Let The Bass Go 
06. DJ Deeon - Southside 
07. DJ Slugo - GOTFNW 
08. Put It Back Down (DJ Slugo Remix) 
09. DJ Slugo - Slugzilla 247925 
10. DJ Slugo - Twerk 
11. DJ Nanoos, Bodhi, DJ Slugo - Arjuuk  
12. DJ Slugo ft John Blu - Wanna Strip P.22 (DJ Slugo Remix) 
13. DJ Slugo - WTB2 
14. Martyn Bootyspoon - These Nike Shox (DJ Slugo Remix) 
15. DJ Slugo - French Fries 
16. DJ Slugo - Juke Like Me 
17. DJ Slugo - Juke It Up 
18. DJ Slugo - Freak It 
19. DJ Slugo - Cycle Zone 
20. DJ Slugo - Jukeology 101 
21. DJ Slugo - Just Like That 
22. DJ Slugo - Pump 
23. DJ Slugo - I’m A Freak 
24. DJ Slugo - Juke, Pop, Work It 
25. DJ Slugo - Its Acid 
26. DJ Slugo - Slug-U Later
27. DJ Slugo - Hit It From The Back 2009 
28. DJ Slugo - Juke That Back Low 
29. DJ Slugo - In The Middle 
30. DJ Slugo - Work That Big Booty 
31. DJ Slugo - Work It (Like This)