As Beyoncé and Drake take on the genre, legends from Robin S to Jesse Saunders reflect on its resurgence
“It was a few weeks back, late at night, I’m in bed, and my phone started pinging,” explains Robin S, the powerhouse vocalist behind Show Me Love, one of the most successful house records ever made. “I stayed half asleep. Then very early in the morning, my son called. I said: ‘Son, I love you but why are you calling me at this time?’ He said: ‘Mom, you’ve got to answer your phone, you’ve got to look at the news – you’re trending all over the place.’”
Robin’s phone was buzzing because Beyoncé had dropped her song Break My Soul at midnight, and it sounded a lot like Show Me Love (Beyoncé credited Show Me Love’s writers Allen George and Fred McFarlane as co-writers). That was just the beginning: it turned out her entire album Renaissance would be an homage to classic vocalists such as Robin , as well as queer cultural highlights (the ballroom scene), produced in collaboration with such dance stars as DJ Honey Dijon and the Chicago producer Green Velvet. Once again, it was the summer of house – only this time it had gone from global dance subculture to the sound of the mainstream.
