Gay men, and particularly gay men of color, are widely credited with creating house music and planting the seeds of the many genres that have evolved from it. The Warehouse “was a haven for the gay community, which also turned into the heterosexual community, because the gay kids were inviting their heterosexual friends who were dying to come in.”įrom Knuckles and company in Chicago to fellow house innovators David Mancuso and Larry Levan in New York, dance music’s roots in the gay club scenes of the late ’70s and early ’80s are well documented. He recruited Knuckles to be the resident DJ at his new club. “Chicago was kind of a racist town,” adds Warehouse founder Robert Williams, who relocated to the Midwest from New York in the early ’70s. How Troye Sivan Found Stardom Without Catering to Straight Fans