The music of Chicago: be it Rock ‘n’ Roll, soul, jazz, house, hip-hop and footwork – is of vital importance to a global club-going community. Musicians, producers and DJ’s from the U.S. city have helped make clubbing the practice it is today. When Keep it Unreal celebrated its 18th birthday, Chicago’s own Jamie 3:26 was Mr Scruff’s esteemed guest selector and this year, that responsibility falls to the great Chicago native, Zernell.
His ‘grimy’ take on house and disco DJ’ing will inject some pure Chicago soul into next month’s proceedings, when the remixer and co-founder of the Crate Diggers Record Fair & After-party series joins forces with Mr Scruff for a 6-hour session.
If you’re unfamiliar with Zernell, then there’s a replete archive of NTS shows for you to check out at your own pace, not to mention this awesome mix for Lights Down Low, embedded below. Not only is he a respected selector, but he also has a clothing label and cares about your vinyl, having put together a very handy step-by-step guide to ripping your records to ultra HQ audio files. Those hard-to-find 12” edits or funk B-side can live in the digital realm as well!
Check out Wax Poetics’ short film on Chicago, which features Zernell discussing crate digging, below and pick up tickets for the 2nd June party here.
