Dj Slugo S Public Housing Past Resonates On The Nicolas Jaar Collaboration Ghetto

• Courtesy of DJ Slugo’s Facebook page
• DJ Slugo

Yesterday electronic wunderkind Nicolas Jaar debuted “Ghetto,” an exultant eight-minute house track featuring vocals from Chicago ghetto house and juke producer Thomas Kendricks, better known as DJ Slugo. Kendricks, who cut his teeth with influential ghetto-house label Dance Mania, drew upon his experience growing up in the Robert Taylor Homes for his contribution: it’s a plainspoken, emotionally resonant spoken-word piece about watching addicts shoot up, gang wars, and neighborhood blight. Close to three minutes in Kendricks details the population density in public housing towers: “Low income housing, 16 floors, ten apartments on each floor, two to three families in each apartment—you do the math.”

Kendricks is working on a full-length for Jaar, which is set to come out next year.