Deeon Boyd (October 5, 1966 – July 18, 2023), known under his stage name DJ Deeon, was an American

Chicago house Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the original house music of DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture History and origins D ...

DJ, credited with pioneering

ghetto house Ghetto house or booty house is a subgenre of house music which started being recognized as a distinct style from around 1992 onwards. It features minimal 808 and 909 drum machine-driven tracks and sometimes sexually explicit lyrics. The templat ...

and helping create the Dance Mania label.

Early life

Boyd was born in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

in 1966. Growing up in a housing project in the South Side, he became interested in

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

after listening to "Numbers" by Kraftwerk off their 1981 album ''

Computer World ''Computer World'' () is the eighth studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released on 11 May 1981. It was accompanied by four singles, including a double A-side UK no. 1 featuring " Computer Love". The album is themed around compu ...

'', later discovering house mixes on

WBMX WBMX (104.3 FM broadcasting, FM, "104.3 Jams") is a commercial radio, commercial radio station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, serving the Chicago metropolitan area and Northwest Indiana. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc. and airs a classic ...

Career

Boyd started DJing in 1980, with Boyd being influenced by

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...

John Rocca John Rocca (born 23 September 1960) is an English dance music performer, remixer, percussionist, and record producer, most well known for his band Freeez. History During the early 1980s, Rocca formed, played with, wrote for, produced and manag ...

, and

Soulsonic Force Soulsonic Force (also referred to as Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force) is an American electro-funk and hip hop ensemble led by Afrika Bambaataa who helped establish hip-hop in the early 1980s with songs such as " Planet Rock." They were also ...

. He helped with the creation of the Dance Mania label with Ray Barney as well as creating the sound of

in the Chicago area. Boyd released his debut EP in 1994, named "Funk City". After "Funk City", he released "Freak Like Me" in 1996, which is regarded as his most successful work. Boyd would continue to release music regarded as classics in the house genre, such as "Bomb 96", "2 B Free", "Wicked", "Back 2 Skool", "House-O-Matic" and "The Freaks". He was named in the

Daft Punk Daft Punk were a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. They achieved popularity in the late 1990s as part of the French house movement, combining house music, funk, disco, tech ...

song "Teachers" from their 1997 album

Homework Homework is a set of tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed at home. Common homework assignments may include required reading, a writing or typing project, Exercise (mathematics), math problems to be completed, informatio ...

. In 2015, the record label

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

reissued four tracks from Boyd in the EP Deeon Doez Deeon!. In 2016, a remix of his track "Freak Like Me" by Lee Walker featuring

Katy B Kathleen Anne Brien (born 8 May 1989), known professionally as Katy B, is an English singer. She released her debut studio album, '' On a Mission'', in 2011, which spawned two top five hits, " Katy on a Mission" and " Lights On". In 2014 she re ...

and

MNEK Uzoechi Osisioma "Uzo" Emenike (; born 9 November 1994), professionally known by his stage name MNEK ( ; a gramogram of Emenike), is a British singer, songwriter and record producer. He has been nominated for a Grammy and a Brit Award, and ha ...

was released on

Defected Records Defected Records, or simply Defected, is a British independent record label specialising in house music recordings, compilation albums, events, publishing, artist bookings and management. Defected is one of the longest running independent lab ...

, reaching #80 on the UK Singles Chart. In 2021, Boyd released Destiny on the label Teklife, with the proceeds of the project going to

DJ Rashad Rashad Hanif Harden (October 9, 1979 – April 26, 2014), known as DJ Rashad, was a Chicago-based electronic musician, producer and DJ known as a pioneer in the footwork genre and founder of the Teklife crew. He released his debut studio ...

's family after his death in 2014. Starting from May 5, 2023, Boyd released four EPs over the span of 2 days, those EPs being "Bad Robot", "Glasgow to London", "My CPU" and "Space Age Digital Pimp".

Personal life

In July 2020, Boyd launched a crowdfunding campaign for his health issues, having no income from gigs due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

and no disability benefits due to his previous touring. In June 2022, he revealed through his

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

account that he had gone through

amputation Amputation is the removal of a Limb (anatomy), limb or other body part by Physical trauma, trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as cancer, malign ...

and

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

and was in an

intensive care unit An intensive care unit (ICU), also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides intensive care medicine. An inten ...

. A

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the ...

had started to cover his medical costs. On July 18, 2023, he died of undisclosed causes.

Artistry

Boyd's style has been described as minimal and raunchy, a staple of the

genre. He personally described his work as "Get-freaky-with-a-stranger music. Girls kissing girls music. Stress-relief music." He was known for using the

Roland TR-909 The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 909, is a drum machine introduced by Roland Corporation in 1983, succeeding the TR-808. It was the first Roland drum machine to use samples for some sounds, and the first with MIDI funct ...

drum machine as the main backbone of his tracks, the instrument "pushed to the breaking point, asked to provide a waterfall of drum sounds".

Discography

Singles and EPs by DJ Deeon

*''Funk City'' (EP) ( Dance Mania, 1994) – incl. "House-O-Matic" *"Freak Like Me" (1996) *Work This M.F. (EP) (DiKi, 1997) – with DJ Puff *"Feel Good" / "Akceler 8" (Caution, 1998) *"2 B Free" *"Let Me Bang" (Databass, 2003) – incl. "Ride This MF" *"The Freaks" (Juke Trax, 2005) *"Wanna Go Bang" ( Drumcode, 2022) *"Bad Robot" (2023) *"Glasgow to London" (2023) *"My CPU" (2023) *"Space Age Digital Pimp" (2023)

Music with contributions by DJ Deeon

*"Work It" by Dance System – DJ Deeon contributed vocals

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, Deeon 1966 births 2023 deaths Record producers from Illinois African-American record producers African-American DJs DJs from Chicago