Episode 2: DJ Big Will (Chicago DJ)

NAME: DJ Big Will

JOB: DJ, The Debauchery Ball and Winter Babies Revenge

EXPERT IN: Reading the room and going with the flow

There’s a gravitational pull of energy that exists when you get somebody talking about the thing they love. For DJ Big Will, a Chicago-based DJ with 20 years of experience, that love is house music. But for being a DJ, we first met in an unlikely place -- when I was a passenger in his Lyft ride.

From the backseat, I found myself instinctively bopping along to a song that had a different feel from what I’m used to. I asked what it was (a house music track from the 80s) and we launched into a lengthy conversation about the Chicago music scene. I learned that (when he’s not driving Lyft), Big Will lives and breathes house music.

Through a career that has included radio, online music curation, and live events, his premiere gig is an annual event in Chicago each December: The Debauchery Ball. This house music dance party blends individuality, eroticism, and art, and Big Will has been their primary in-house DJ since its inception 15 years ago. Their event page puts it best: “House music is our foundation. Freedom is our creed. Lames, creeps & inhibitions not allowed.”

Naturally, I had a host of questions: How do you prepare for a five-hour dance party? How much do you rely on the people in the room to direct your DJ’ing choices? And what’s involved, exactly, in this work?

“It's not about me. If it was about me, I would stay at home and play the music by myself. My job is to make you have a good time. And to dance.”

Like any job with a real-time feedback cycle, live events introduce a lot of unpredictability. For DJ Big Will, this includes everything from unreliable DJs to issues with faulty sound equipment. Staying level-headed during these moments is paramount to his success, as is organization and preparation. You need to be ready for whatever happens on the floor that night. As it turns out, in such a people-centric industry, reputation is everything, and reliability goes a long way.

In this episode, in addition to hearing from DJ Big Will’s experiences as a DJ in the pre-pandemic world, you’ll also hear what he’s been up to in the year since. As you might imagine, life as a DJ without IRL dance parties means something entirely different…

In our conversation, being able to read the room surfaced repeatedly as a major theme of Big Will’s work. As a DJ, this is critical, he explained, in order to avoid “the dreadful parting of the red seas,” where the crowd of people either stops dancing or migrates off the dance floor. Sometimes, this also means checking your own ego at the door. As he put it, “It's not about me. If it was about me, I would stay at home and play the music by myself. My job is to make you have a good time.”

I’ve structured my podcast in a similar way -- to surface stories of people you might not hear from every day. It’s not about me; it’s about them. With that in mind, I hope you’ll enjoy learning from Big Will and hearing some of his stories.

Today, you can find DJ Big Will DJ'ing the Underground Dance Suite on Friday nights at www.gottahavehouseradio.com, You can also listen to his mixes on SoundCloud and on YouTube, and also find him on Instagram. Watch Thee Debauchery Ball documentary on Kweli TV or on YouTube.