House Music History, One Chapter at a Time

Abusia Backtrack is a chapter-based editorial series tracing the origins and evolution of house music. From the underground clubs of New York to the DJs and dancers who moved the crowd, this series puts legacy front and center — one story at a time.

House music isn’t just a genre. It’s a culture, a movement, and a living memory. With Backtrack, we honor that memory through storytelling. Each chapter is carefully crafted to preserve what might otherwise be lost — not just the beats, but the context, the community, and the soul that gave rise to the sound.

Each chapter digs deep into a person, place, movement, or moment that helped shape house music’s identity. Whether it’s a tribute to a fallen pioneer, a spotlight on a forgotten venue, or an exploration of genre roots, this archive was created to protect and uplift the golden era of dance culture.

These aren’t just blog posts. They’re essays, editorials, and time capsules — layered, intentional, and rooted in love for the music. They connect generations of clubgoers, crate-diggers, vinyl collectors, and DJs. They speak to the dancers who came before, and the dreamers who still move to that same rhythm today.

Backtrack isn’t simply about nostalgia. It’s about reclamation. It’s about telling the stories that commercial narratives often leave out — the Black, queer, underground voices that formed the foundation of this global movement. Through this series, we write the record back in our own words.

We dig into the tape decks and the dusty flyers. We search through memory, radio archives, oral histories, and club legend. And we emerge with stories that live between the beats — stories of resilience, creativity, loss, and joy.

Abusia Backtrack is for those who understand that music isn’t just made — it’s lived.

If you’ve ever lost yourself in the fog and bass of a club at 3 AM…
If you know the name Larry without needing a last name…
If you believe that history isn’t just what’s written, but what’s danced…
Then these chapters are yours, too.

More are coming. The story isn’t finished. Let’s stay on the record.