Two residents in Sheffield have set up a charitable event organisation to help bring more house music to Sheffield.
House 4 The Heart is an organisation aimed to bring “feel-good” house music to Sheffield whilst supporting local and up-and-coming DJ’s.
Robbie Ferguson, co-founder of House 4 The Heart, got into DJ’ing about a year ago to help improve his mental health. He had the idea to set up events to try to get more Sheffield residents into the genre.
The none profit organisation donate their proceeds to the LNADJ charity, which connects the dance music community to help children in crisis.
He said: “House music is something that I found a real passion in. Every time I’ve been at or played at an event it’s those feel-good house numbers that get the people grooving, everyone’s happy and having a good time. “
“Sheffield is undoubtedly one of the best scenes for music in the UK. The indie-rock genre has put Sheffield on the map since the 80s and 90s with bands such as Pulp and now, the Arctic Monkeys who are massive in the music world.”
House music originated in Chicago in underground club culture and spread through America in the early 1980’s.
It is the oldest genre within electronic dance and became popularised when the disco era ended.
The genre is still large with House Music DJs like Pierre David Guetta which has over 10 million albums and 65 million singles sales globally, with more than 10 billion streams worldwide, according to last FM.
Mr Ferguson said: “Not to criticise the extremely impressive scenes of jungle and DnB, which around Sheffield have more popularity, but the music is a marmite genre, people either love it or hate it.”
“House music and DJ’ing as a hobby made me more passionate and more proactive when I was often feeling low.”
Jude Royall, who plays at live events across Sheffield, thinks it is great the genre is being adopted in Sheffield.
However, he said: “Live events need to stay intimate and passionate about the music. House music is a versatile genre but gets a negative stigma with some artists using generic sounds which ruins the experience.”
House music is characterised by a steady pulse played around 120 beats per minute (bpm).
The organisation has planned to host its first summer fundraiser in Sheffield at Sydney & Matilda on the 10th of June.
For more information on donations for the next event click below.
Co-founders of House 4 The Heart, Robbie Ferguson and Joe Pinnock
