How House Music Came to Be
House Music is known around the world, but it started in the city of Chicago. The documentary, Move Ya Body: The Birth of House, directed by Elegance Bratton, takes us on a journey of the creation of House starting in the 1970s.
First Lady Hillary Clinton approached Bratton to create the documentary, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
Move Ya Body follows Vince Lawrence, who produced the first recorded House song, “On and On”, with Jesse Saunders and Rock N Roll artist Screaming Rachel. The documentary walks us through young Lawrence’s life, starting with his first job as an usher at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Lawrence got his work permit in his early teens to save up for a synthesizer so he could start making his own tracks.
In July 1979, the “Disco Demolition Night” was held in Chicago at Comiskey Park to blow up crates of disco records. Radio DJ Steve Dahl held the event on the field in between a White Sox game. The documentary shows us footage of that night and interviews with Dahl’s hate for the popularity of disco. Dahl and many others said they didn’t see that event as a racist act, but others saw it as otherwise because of the destruction of Black music. The event turned into a riot, and the White Sox were forced to forfeit the second game.
No one knew that the little Black boy at work that day would become a pioneer of House.
“If you believe in something and stick at it, things happen,” said Lawrence to the Carvd N Stone Team. “…I came from the Southside of Chicago from one of the poorest neighborhoods, and I just wanted to play music with my friends.”
Bratton not only wanted to tell the story of House but also show it, so he tapped into his fiction bag and recreated some of the locations where House was played. The Warehouse is one of the main locations in the documentary that Bratton and his team recreated. The actual term House Music comes from The Warehouse, which was a club in Chicago that proudly and loudly bumped House. According to the documentary, The Warehouse had seven-foot base speakers that could be heard from blocks away. In spaces like The Warehouse, people came to dance their traumas and worries away and party with people who would typically be judged in the outside world.
“I looked around, and the music that was the soundtrack to all of this power and this liberation was House Music,” Bratton said. “…In those clubs were the spaces that I felt the most safe, the most valued, and the most relevant, and I just wanted to make that possible for others to feel through the film,” said Bratton.
The documentary highlights how Black people created House Music in Chicago and spread it worldwide, reaching places like London and Tokyo. Yet, it was white DJs who have and are benefiting from House Music. For example, EDM comes from House, but white DJs are credited for bringing it to the masses.
Move Ya Body gives credit to those who never received it and shines a light on Black people’s contributions to this world, which are often overlooked.
“I hope this film inspires people to work together to collaborate to believe in their friends, believe in that guy down the block that might be a little weird, and know that things can happen,” said Lawrence.
The Freedom of House Music
When asked what House Music is, Lawrence, along with Bratton, and producer Chester Algernal Gordon said House Music is freedom.
“House Music is the beating heart of love. It’s togetherness and unity and a rhythm and a move, and everybody’s all on one frequency,” said Lawrence.
House Music is often associated with the Queer community, and Bratton said he thanks them for showing the world how to be free. He also added that House teaches people how to come together, so it was important he showed that in the documentary.
“Because we never get to see Black folks making music together, having a good time, spreading joy and love, especially when it comes to Chicago. I was trying to just use my experience to push myself to make something that could really transcend and pay homage to Chicago and the people who made this wonderful House Music that I love,” said Bratton.
Move Ya Body shows the world the power of House and those behind it.
“House Music means freedom…House Music to me…[is] Black bodies in motion, which always comes with consequence…it’s a sense of expression,” Gordon said to the Carvd N Stone Team.
Bratton hopes to have a theatrical release for Move Ya Body, where he turns theaters around the country into dance clubs.
Check out our video interviews from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival here.
This coverage is presented by Visit Milwaukee.
