Missoula Pride - Chicago House Showcase

🎶 Where music was family. Where the dance floor was home. Where joy was revolutionary. 🎶

This year, Missoula Pride’s annual music series turns its spotlight on Chicago — the birthplace of House music and a city where queer and Black communities forever changed the sound (and soul) of dance music.

Last year, we honored the legacy of Detroit Techno. This year, we celebrate Chicago House — because you can’t tell the story of electronic music without telling the story of queer and Black resistance, creativity, and joy.

The Queer History of Chicago House

House music wasn’t born in the mainstream. It was born underground — in late ‘70s and early ‘80s Chicago — in spaces created by and for queer, Black, and brown communities.

At the center of it all was The Warehouse, where DJ Frankie Knuckles — now known as the Godfather of House — blended disco, soul, gospel, and electronic sounds into something entirely new. The name House music comes from that very club — tying the genre forever to its queer roots.

For queer and trans people of color facing racism, homophobia, transphobia, and the AIDS crisis, House music was more than just a sound — it was survival. The dance floor became sacred. A space of chosen family, of release, of radical self-expression.

Chicago’s House music scene pulsed alongside the city’s ballroom culture — where music, voguing, and fierce competition built community and celebrated identity. The House of Avant Garde, one of Chicago’s earliest and most iconic ballroom houses, helped create those spaces of safety, style, and defiance.

House music traveled far beyond Chicago — but it was always rooted in queer liberation, Black joy, and the power of the dance floor to heal and unite.

Event Details

✨ Missoula Pride Presents: A Tribute to Chicago House Music

📍 Monks Bar

📅 Saturday, June 21 - 9 p.m. doors, 9:30 p.m. show

🎟 21+ | $10 - no one turned away

Featuring Two Chicago Trailblazers Keeping the Legacy Alive:

🎧 Shaun J. Wright

Shaun J. Wright is a Chicago house icon and multidisciplinary DJ/producer known for connecting with audiences far beyond the club. A Smartbar resident and frequent collaborator with Hercules & Love Affair, Alinka, and Kim Ann Foxman, Shaun also opened for Beyoncé on the Renaissance Tour and crafted her official pre-show playlist

🎧 Chachi Guerrero

For 20 years, Chachi Guerrero has shaped the Midwest’s underground music scene with multi-genre sets rooted in her Venezuelan heritage and Chicago grit. She’s played everything from Boiler Room to Burning Man, and founded Bless This Mess—an inclusive collective uplifting queer and femme talent. Chachi’s work is all about safe spaces, genre-bending sound, and dance floor community.

Local Support: MumbleBee

Come Dance in the Legacy

Join us as we transform Monks into a Chicago-style House haven — a night of movement, connection, and tribute to the queer and Black innovators who turned music into resistance, dance floors into refuge, and joy into power.

🌈 This is House. This is Family. This is Pride.

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