In a dark warehouse just blocks from the Chicago River, house music was born, and its father was Frankie Knuckles. Though the famed Chicago DJ passed away in 2014, his legacy as a pioneer lives on around the world. In his memory, the Frankie Knuckles Foundation has been hard at work archiving the late producer and DJ’s massive vinyl collection as part of a new display at Theater Gates’s Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago.
The collection is part of an ongoing memorialization of the DJ, where the next generation of musicians can be exposed to that legacy. “The collection is meant to be felt” shared Theater Gates shared in a recent video for the Foundation. “Our hope is to attract world class DJs and local DJs, who are the scholars of house, and invite them to pump the music as hard as they can, to be in the spirit of Frankie Knuckles and share that with this neighborhood, our city and the world.”
The Frankie Knuckles Foundation was established to help support causes like youth homelessness and LGBTQ rights, and organizers hope to bridge Knuckles’ history with a healthy, progressive future for the city of Chicago.
Watch a clip from the Frankie Knuckles Foundation below.
