Black Sjuan is a DJ and producer with deep, deep roots in the Chicago house music scene.

For the last three years we’ve been reviewing his records under this alias, on his own label Assylum Effort & on Chicago’s seminal Fresh Meat Records. In addition to the amazing interview with him (which will be coming later this week), he put together our cover mix for #5mag212.

It’s all, he says “very Chicago. I use a lot of tracks from Chicago people, a lot of Chicago people that I really admire” in this mix.

“My mix is just riddled with secret messages. If you notice I use a lot of antiphony in my mixes — meaning I find tracks that are like a call and response. I make the tracks talk back and forth. That’s just my style. A lot of DJs don’t like that because they think it’s too showy or the DJ is doing too much.

“Personally, I feel like the track itself is not the final product. The mix is the final product. And I will even take it further to say that the blend itself is the final product. And that’s not necessarily the case for everybody. A lot of people just wanna show up, play their tracks and highlight their own tracks. I’m a big fan of Spencer Kincy, so I just like to take tracks and make new tracks out of ’em. I like to remix them right in front of you when I’m DJing live. So that’s how I am on the mix.

“But if you listen to this mix, there are double entendres. I don’t know if you noticed the first double entendre, but the first track is called ‘Orientation.’ It happens to be a favorite track of mine. But ‘Orientation’ is at the beginning of the mix, the beginning of my mix, the beginning of knowing who Black Sjuan is.

“As the track goes on, it blends into Derrick Carter’s ‘Where U At?’ So from ‘Orientation’ to ‘Where U At?’ You get it? I do that in all my tracks and all my mixes. There’s nothing less than a double entendre. There’s always at least a double entendre.

“That’s just how I am — all my stuff has to mean something. It drives people crazy sometimes but it all means something.”

🔴 Listen: The Cover Mix ⚡️ Black Sjuan

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Black Sjuan on Bandcamp
Assylum Effort Records on Bandcamp
Black Sjuan on Traxsource
Black Sjuan on Instagram

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