Fieldwork: The Chronicles of Black Sjuan

Everyone thinks they have a novel inside of them. Black Sjuan has a movie trilogy inside his head. It’s the story of a new art form that emerged from the streets of Chicago — house music from the perspective of one man, the guy who always seemed to be at the party or the afters, either playing or listening or talking or all three.

One of Chicago house music’s most inventive and inspiring figures, Black Sjuan has performed and released music under multiple aliases from the early 1990s onward. At school in downstate Champaign, Illinois, he learned how to use keyboards, samplers and drum machines — the rudimentary tools of electronic music — before starting a record label with DJ Mazi (aka Audio Soul Project) called Shroom Records. “We didn’t know what we were doing,” he says now. “We were just trying to make records.” But in its brief life, the label’s owners produced and released the first recording from DJ Colette (1995’s “Moments of Epiphany”) and the second track from Légo.

Black Sjuan would become well-known under the alias DJ Motion; album copy for Shaboom, the label run by M People singer Mark “Blakkat” Bell, would list DJ Motion as one of the “giants of the genre” alongside Sneak, Doc Martin and Paul Johnson.

When I stumbled across his record “Rogue Disco” on Bandcamp, I had no idea who this “Black Sjuan” was or the connection to this history or his past records (though it should have been obvious from the title of 2021’s “Motion’s Rhythm“). I thought it was the work of a lone savant, someone who studied music in solitude until emerging with a pitch-perfect Chicago house sound. Those promos were on Chicago labels that still do solid A&R and base their releases on relationships, like Fresh Meat, Smooth Agent and his own Assylum Effort, where he once dropped six EPs in more or less a single day. It’s clear after listening to releases like 2022’s “The Underdog Railroad” and last summer’s “Bump Therapy” that Black Sjuan, as I wrote a few months back, “represents either the last one standing or is a symbol of the revival of a no-nonsense, strictly underground house sound.” I didn’t have all the info but that isn’t wrong: after interviewing hundreds of artists of artists over the years, Black Sjuan is maybe the best student of Chicago house I’ve ever spoken to, able to drop references to acoustic details of 20 year old records like we just finished listening to them. And his music is so authentic it hurts.

My whole thing is that I got epic stories, man. You can name anybody in Chicago, almost any DJ, and I’ve got a funny story that happened with me and that person. I’m not trying to namedrop but I’ve got a story about them. I’m just telling you how interwoven I am through Chicago, like a fabric.

In a couple of hours one Friday afternoon we recorded about 15,000 words worth of Black Sjuan’s story, his observations and the lessons learned from cats like Derrick Carter, Spencer Kincy, Mark Rubel and ones he learned by himself alone. That transcript alone was about a quarter of the length of an average-sized novel. The Black Sjuan story goes deep, man. We winnowed it down some to focus mostly on the music. The rest will have to wait for the movies.

So I do not know very much about your early life or how you got into the scene. Where are you from and when did you get involved in house music?

I kind of bounced between the East Coast and the Midwest. I have relatives in Champaign, Illinois and I went to high school and college there. I fell into some of the parties that were happening and that’s where it began musically. I connected with — or maybe I should just say “followed around” — the people who were involved in house music at [University of Illinois] at the time. That would be people like Eddie Mills, Pharris Thomas… Curtis Jones (Cajmere) used to go to U of I, Spencer Kincy… I don’t think Spencer went to classes, but he hung around down there.

I had relationship with all of those people back in the day from just following them around, trying to absorb the “vibe” I guess, back when I was a teenager. By the time I went to school at U of I, I met up with other DJs and got into the music that way.

And when was that?

I started to DJ around 1990. At first I didn’t know how to DJ, so I was like the drum machine dude and I kind of taught them how to produce and how to put together samples and stuff. My first gear was stuff like an Ensoniq EPS-16+ sampler and a Roland R8 drum machine. Later I got a Korg N1 and that was my equipment for several years.

We were trading knowledge and did a couple live shows in college. We actually did a show with Cajmere way back when. The first live PA show I did was opening for Cajmere. We paid him to come down to U of I to play at a warehouse party. That was my first live show and that was before we even started recording. So I’ve been in it for a long time!

My whole thing is that I got epic stories, man. You can name anybody in Chicago, almost any DJ and I’ve got a funny story that happened with me and that person. I’m not trying to namedrop but I’ve got a story about them. I’m just telling you how interwoven I am through Chicago, like a fabric.

Well, I’m gonna test you on that. Everyone will want to hear a Spencer Kincy story.

I’ve got an excellent Spencer Kincy story. Now it would be very cool for me to say that back in the day I was right there when he was doing stuff for Cajual, blah blah blah, but I’m going to tell you the truth: Me and Spencer had a very complicated relationship. You ever see that cartoon where there’s a big dog and a little dog, and the little dog is jumping around like “Hey man! Wanna go do stuff?” and the big dog just smashes him down? That was me and Spencer. I was the little dog. [laughs] I was really green, man, and Cajual was really big. Spencer was down with Caj and I was just chasing them around, trying to be on Cajual at that time. I was nowhere near good enough, but I was chasing it down.

It was like The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei. That was Spencer and me. He taught me some cruel, cruel lessons. But everything I learned from him I still use to this day — musical lessons and ways to trick the music into doing what you want it to do.

Now back in the mid-’90s, Spencer and me and Tyree Cooper all lived within like a block of each other in Buena Park. I would hang out with Tyree Cooper because he was one of my heroes. He was one of the first people I knew about that made a house album. I caught hold of it and listened to for like a year on my Walkman back in the day. Tyree lived like upstairs from me in the same building. Spencer Kincy was around the corner. I would stop by Spencer’s house to try to hang out and just try to absorb the “Spencer-ness.” I heard him DJ, and if you listen to my mix in this issue, a lot of my influence comes from Spencer. The way he blended, the way he would take two tracks and try to create a new track… There’s a lot of Spencer in my DJing.

Anyway I would try to hang out and try to work on a track with Spencer. Spencer was like “Yeah! Order a pizza!” or whatever. I would come over and I’d order a pizza and I’d think we’re getting ready to work something but he would ditch me or something. Now he would teach me one good thing every time we hooked up. But then he would ditch me. Or sometimes he stood me up.

You know, it was like The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei. That was Spencer and me. He taught me some cruel, cruel lessons. But everything I learned from him I still use to this day! You know? And not even DJing — just certain things from his personality. Which was not the best personality in the world — he was not the warmest guy in the world. He was hard to understand. I don’t know, there was something about his genius that I was always attracted to. I would sift through the abuse and the weird things he would do to show that he was like the king and I was like the pauper. [laughs] He made sure that was always established. But I still use a lot of those lessons that I learned from Spencer — musical lessons and ways to trick the music into doing what you want it to do. We had a really complicated relationship and this lasted all the way up through until the time he stopped DJing.

One time I was at Schubas — they used to throw parties on Sunday morning, like a pancake breakfast. And one time I’d done this really hot party and I had a bunch of friends hanging out at one of the tables with me. I think Lady D was playing. And Spencer walks in with two beautiful women. I have no idea who these women are, he’s hugging them and everything. I’m like “Hey Spencer, how you doing?” And he looked at me like, “Who do you… are you talking to me?” And everyone looked at me like, “Really? You think that you can talk to Spencer Kincy?” I looked like a total idiot. He walked away with the two beautiful women and went on to the party.

Later, I’m standing outside, I think I’m smoking some weed or something. Spencer Kincy comes out without the girls and says… [in a formal voice] “Hey man, how you doing?” Like suddenly he was all normal and shit!

I’m like, “I’m alright.” And I’m like, “Beautiful women, huh?”

And he said, “Alright man, you have a good night.”

He walks away. Later the party’s ending and we’re all leaving at the same time. And he turned back into the other guy. He would be all mean to me in front of people, and then later on be cool, and then he’d be mean again.

Like I said it was very complicated and I don’t know why he did that. Maybe he did that because I took it. I never went off on him for it. I don’t know, I thought he was a genius so I just kind of took it.

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Not gonna lie, I’ve heard stories like that before but most people wouldn’t go into much detail. That must have been really odd to know someone across a couple of cities and many years and have that relationship.

I can tell you this: all my heroes do not like me. Like Derrick [Carter] and Chez [Damier], Diz — they all don’t like me! I don’t know why!

Actually I think of one reason Derrick doesn’t like me. Derrick used to live at this place called Red Nail. It was a loft on Green Street on the fifth floor of this building. It had a lot of history — Mark [Farina] used to live there and Diz lived there and so on and so on. Anyway, as Derrick was moving out of that loft, me and DJ Mazi and a few people were moving in. We thought he was moving into a better place because he was Derrick Carter and he was movin’ on up. Later we found out he was getting kicked out because they were DJing and being loud. The people who got him kicked out didn’t know we were DJs too (and we got kicked out the following year). So he had a grudge because we were the people that replaced him at Red Nail. He didn’t hold it against us, but he didn’t really like us either. He liked Mazi better than me. [laughs] So like I said, none of my heroes like me, man. Me and Chez worked in the studio once and… I don’t know, it’s something about me. So I don’t meet heroes anymore. I love their music, you know, but it doesn’t even do me any good to namedrop!

To go backward for a sec, when did you really start to take music seriously? In Champaign, in Chicago?

Well I left school first before the guys I was working with did. I came up to Chicago but we kept working together. I would go back-and-forth on the weekends and we try to write tracks. Maybe around 1991 or ’92 we started our own label, Shroom Records. You know DJ Mazi right? Mazi was my partner back then. We released a couple records on Shroom. We released Colette’s very first record she ever did. I wrote that record and we recorded it and released it on Shroom Records. Légo’s second track he ever released was a remake he did for Shroom Records.

And I’m just gonna tell you, we didn’t know what we were doing! We were just trying to make records. These were in the vinyl days and DJ Sneak became a fan of the label. When Gramaphone made their top 10 record charts, Sneak grabbed one of our Shroom Records and put it at #3 because he liked it. And that got us thinking that we could probably do this for real.

Okay so you mentioned Spencer. Who else am I hearing in your music?

Definitely Derrick Carter. I always thought that Derrick was really creative.

As far as producers, I know people that are just gonna frown and roll their eyes when they say this but I do like Quincy Jones. I like Dr Dre. I like Bill Laswell. I like Kruder & Dorfmeister. Those are my producer guys.

But as far as DJs, I love everybody. I listen to everybody. You know, I used to be the guy that listened. I still do a lot of listening. But back in the day when you actually had to go to a party to listen, I was at a lot of parties.

I don’t know if you remember the triumvirate of Frique, Diz and Légo. Those three used to play the Paulina parties, the Wabansia parties. Those three for awhile in the ’90s and early ’00s used to play a consistent line of parties that were really successful in Chicago. They were in a lot of risky places. I remember climbing up some pretty shaky fire escapes.

That’s one of the things about music, man. It doesn’t matter if they suck or if they’re not very good. Everybody’s got ideas and sometimes, the execution may not carry over the idea. But if you’re skilled enough, it can be like — Whoa, you didn’t pull that off very well, but it was a good idea. So I listen to everybody because you never know what you’re gonna learn or who you’re gonna learn from.

Mel [Hammond] and Jevon [Jackson] at Mad Bar — they used to have a four turntable gig every Wednesday that I used to listen to a lot. There was a lot of stuff from people who played regularly here and I picked up a lot of commonisms — like Chicago commonisms — from them.

That’s one of the things about music, man. It doesn’t matter if they suck or if they’re not very good. Everybody’s got ideas and sometimes, the execution may not carry over the idea. But if you’re skilled enough, it can be like — Whoa, you didn’t pull that off very well, but it was a good idea. So I listen to everybody because you never know what you’re gonna learn or who you’re gonna learn from.

Where did all of the listening lead you to? Do you have a broader philosophy behind your music?

I do. I actually have a kind of “triangular” idea behind my music. Music to me has to be three things: it’s gotta be bumpin’, it’s gotta be funky, and it’s gotta be fun.

Being in Chicago you start to emphasize certain sides of the music. If you’re really into deepness, you’re really into obscurity, that can take you out of the realm of being bumpin’ — you know what I’m sayin’?

I’ll give you an example. Me and DJ Funk — Charles. Two different styles. Back in the day he played a lot of ghetto and a lot of booty house and I played more deep stuff. Somehow we got booked at the same party. We didn’t know each other but we had this idea of each other’s music. He immediately came up to me. “Hey man, Motion” — this is back when my name was Motion — “Hey, Motion how you doin’?” He was really nice. I’d only heard him nominally, hadn’t really heard a real set by him.

So I played. It was grooving, it was a nice party, everybody’s pumpin’, whatever. And then he got on after me and blew the doors off the club. I mean I thought I had done some stuff that people would groove to. No. He brought fun! When he played, it was just fun! People appreciated what I did. Some people got what I did but everybody got what he did. Everybody understood it was time for asses to move and it was fun time.

I learned fun from DJ Funk. That’s when I realized that anything I do —

#1. It has to be bumpin’, that’s from Derrick. Derrick was always bumpin’.
#2. From Diz I learned funkiness. He was always funky to me, everything he played was always funky.
#3. Fun, from DJ Funk. It must be fun. Because this is entertainment, you know. You might want to educate and be all cool and try to let people know what you’re about. But at the end of the day people just wanna have fun. So you gotta make sure that’s in everything.

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5 Mag Issue 212
Out April 2024

BELOVED: This was originally published in 5 Mag Issue #212 featuring an oral history of Freerange, DJ Paulette, Black Sjuan, Elbert Phillips, Dark Heaven and more. Become a member for $2/month and get every issue in your inbox right away!

You did this track as Black Sjuan called “Dearly Beloved (We Come 2 House)” which seems to have been picked up, licensed, remixed by quite a few outlets and quite a few players. What can you tell me about that track?

“Dearly Beloved” was inspired by that little bit at the beginning of “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince. And the meaning of it was “we come to some place.” It was more like “we came to house,” “we come to do house music,” “we come to dance.” That’s all it means. “We come to house,” but kind of like how an old person would say it. That’s the spirit I was in when I wrote it.

Sean Smith from Smooth Agent heard it and it started from there. He heard it, he licensed it and another label licensed it and I think they liked the vocals. The vocals had a commonism most DJs would agree with. I think that’s why people like it.

With my vocals, I either go with something that every DJ would play and every DJ would wanna say, or I go in completely the opposite direction. Like at the end of my mix it has me saying “It’s okay baby, I know you don’t love me, it’s just a party but we can have fun tonight anyway.” That’s a very specific thing. But I thought that would be cool because you’ve never heard that on a record. It’s something that you would hear at a party, but you never heard anybody say it on a record. So I actually have a track with that on it, but I just used the vocal for the mix.

So you mentioned the gear that you started with, what do you use now?

I have another job and I have to do a lot of traveling during the week. A lot of my tracks I write on a laptop in the airport, in my hotel room — a lot of places where I’m just waiting on something. I still have some of my old original gear, but now I also have a virtual version of it.

What software do you use?

I use Ableton mostly. I’ve come up through the ranks, though. I learned how to use everything. I just landed on Ableton because it kind of fits what I like to do.

Let me explain to you why I can use a laptop. Before I even started to DJ, I learned how to record analog. Back in Champaign, there was a guy named Mark Rubel who was the main engineer in town. I took his engineering class and I learned how to record on two inch reel and how to record real instruments. So I just learned that all the way from back from the beginning. Digital was just coming into play right around that time. When you’ve got that much experience going all the way back to when people were still using magnetic tape, you find you can do things on a laptop and still get a decent sound out of it.

I will tell you I’m not the best engineer in the world. Mazi is probably a better engineer out of all of us that came up together. But once you get a nominal understanding of how compressors work or limiters work or whatever, it’s not that hard to make a digital transition. But that’s the only reason trust myself to be able to make tracks just a laptop on the run the way I do, because I’ve been making tracks for like 30 years.

You seem active on Bandcamp, how long have you been putting your music on there?

About three years. I make most of my money from Bandcamp. I guess it’s okay. They just got bought out by this new company but they haven’t changed that much. But the more these companies get bought out and the platforms become more limited, it just makes me want to go to the DJ Sneak route. You know, DJ Sneak has this site and says, Hey, if you want my stuff, this is where you go and get all of it. I’ve been looking at that because I’ve also been experimenting with videos. I wanna get more into video production and making videos for my tracks. So I’ve been researching getting a website, creating my own platform.

So you’ve referenced it a few times in the interview, but what can you tell us about 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.

The mix is a compilation of life experiences. The blends kind of tell stories. As an example (although it’s not my best execution), the blend between Armand Van Helden’s “Last Tango in Paris” remix of the Wamdue Kids’ track and my track “Heart Machine” is a sonic emulation of me dying during an overdose and then coming back to life. If you listen to the way the tracks interact, you can hear drama and then celebration. Dig it? That’s how my mixes work. Sonic storytelling. If you read the title of the tracks, listen to lyrics, listen to the polyrhythms converse… it all makes sense. And I try to make it obvious enough for you to figure out if you pay attention.

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.

But this is all very Chicago. I use a lot of tracks from Chicago people that I really admire.

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