David Mancuso

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

David Mancuso was an American DJ, born in 1944 in Utica, New York. He spent his first five years in an orphanage and later often ran away from home. As a teenager he fell under the spell of rhythm and blues. At sixteen he left school and worked as a dishwasher to save for a move to New York, where he arrived in 1962. There he went to rent parties in Harlem and the hippie clubs of the East Village.

Music and breakthrough

From 1966 he played records for friends in his home. On 14 February 1970 he held his first big party at 647 Broadway, Love Saves the Day. From it grew The Loft: a private, invitation-only party, and not an ordinary commercial nightclub. Mancuso sold no food or drink to the public and therefore, after a long process, did not need a licence. He also helped set up the system through which DJs received promotional records.

Influence

The Loft became the model for many later clubs in New York, such as the Paradise Garage, The Gallery and The Saint. In this way Mancuso played a key role in the emergence of the dance music culture of the 1970s, in which the DJ and the dance floor came to take centre stage. He created a party where people danced together to music that was carefully chosen. Later he founded a label for carefully mastered dance music. He died in 2016.

Listening

In School of Rock

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• Mixtape 6: Fear of a Black Planet^NL Reader