There are few people in the world better placed to speak on the enduring power of house music and represent its potential to change the world one, party at a time. The city is sexy. I love the people. I love the architecture. The workshop will be held at Perros Barcelona, exploring the topic of How to make nightlife a safe haven? Ahead of the climactic events, we spoke to Honey Dijon about growing up in the formative years of house culture, timeless music, her love for Barcelona, and preserving the power of the dancefloor as a sacred space.
Tell us about what the scene was like during those formative years? I always like to say that I was born at the beginning of a subcultural, countercultural movement that we now know as house music, but for me it was just part of the fabric of growing up in Chicago.
For my formal education, I went to a Catholic high school, and if you know about the beginnings of house music culture, a lot of the early house music parties were held in high school auditoriums. I always like to say I was born at the right place at the right time for the right situation. I firstly started experiencing house music before I went to clubs, in skating rinks and auditoriums. I was going to these high school dances and it happened to be DJs, so that was my initial introduction into house music when I was 12 or 13 years old.
Little did I know it would change the world — it's just what we did. I always like to refer to that quote by Frankie Knuckles. As you know, there was a big demolition night in Chicago by Steve Dahl where they demolished all the disco records, but it really wasn't just disco records, it was Black music.
Frankie Knuckles always said "house music was disco's revenge". So it just went underground and rebirthed itself as house music. This is how I grew up in it. It was just everywhere.
